class journals from the british council

The British Council has a lot of ready-made resources for teachers of English:
Teach English | British Council
Learn English | British Council

For example:
Jay Doubleyou: how to be dynamic in the esl classroom
Jay Doubleyou: english language teachers and their use of digital technology

Here are a couple of developed ideas on Class Journals - great for getting students into the habit of writing:

Class journals

Students often write in their English classes, following a specific genre in order to do so: the informal email; a job application letter, etc. Of course, it is important that they learn this kind of writing (which is usually essential for exam success), but it doesn’t always encourage them to write for the sake of writing, and to get used to writing in a more relaxed and creative way.

The aim of this lesson plan is to introduce the writing journal into the class, as a different kind of class writing activity, which can become an additional tool in order to help students develop their writing skills.

What is a journal?

Let me first start by defining what I mean by a journal in this lesson plan. This is a similar idea to a ‘learner diary’, where students regularly reflect on what they have learnt in classes, and the way that activities in class have helped them to learn. Nick Peachey has written in TeachingEnglish about using learner diaries in this way. It is also a similar idea to teacher-student journals, where students will write their ideas, and the teacher will make some sort of comment. Over time, this becomes a bit like a dialogue that takes place between student and teacher, and can help both student and teacher to learn more about each other (which usually has a good effect on motivation and learning)....

Article written by Joanna Dossetor

Class journals | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC

Class journals

This lesson plan looks at one way class journals might be set up in order to introduce students to the idea and to get them working with journals

The kind of class journal described here is designed to get the students writing freely in a range of different ways.  The emphasis is on fluency, as opposed to any kind of genre writing, and could be compared to the kind of oral fluency activities done with students.  

Rather than focusing on accuracy, or a particular style, we want students to use their language resource to express their ideas in any way that seems best to them; in this way, we will help them to build a writing habit, and to write more confidently. For more background about using class journals, please click here to see the Teaching English article that links to this lesson plan.

Topic: Class journals

Level: A2 and above

Aims:

• To set up a class journal with a group
• To build the writing habit, by doing several journal writing activities during the class
• To read what other students have written in response to the tasks set
• To reflect on learning and to discuss this in class
• To discuss class attitudes to error and correction, and establish the correction guidelines for the teacher

Plan components

Lesson plan: Download

A4 Paper and a stapler or a class set of blank notebooks

The plan is downloadable and in pdf format - right click on the attachment and save it on your computer.

Copyright - please read

All the materials on these pages are free for you to download and copy for educational use only. If you have any questions about the use of these materials please email us at:teachingenglish@britishcouncil.org

By Joanna Dossetor

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Class journals | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC
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