So I posted a few messages a few months ago looking for classes that were discussing the death penalty. The idea was to have students in another country discussing the death penalty with my students on my death penalty message board. The benefits: if students organize their thoughts in order to post to a message board before a class discussion, this planning time will help students produce more accurate and complex language the second time around (see Martin Bygate's research on task repetition). After the class discussion, students might be motivated to continue communicating with the other class, especially if the members of one class post their messages in response to members of the other class (If everyone just starts a new thread there's no real interaction going on). More English practice.
This could work for any of my English practice message boards. For example students could disuss the attractions in their own countries and respond with questions about attractions in other countries on the travel message baord. Or after the first day of class, more practice with introductions on the say "hi" message board. If you have a class that's doing a topic not listed on my message boards, just leave a comment and tell me which topic you'd like me to add. Then you can look for another class to share ideas with your class.
Posted by James Trotta at May 22, 2004 5:08 PMESL blog is one of many Blogs for learning English & teaching English. Translation services information.