Task 12 …And the Winner is… Blog

… And the winner is… no, not a movie, but a word. It’s official, ‘blog’ a contraction of the term ‘web log’, won the equivalent of a word Oscar yesterday for being the most searched word on the Internet in 2004. This is according to dictionary giant Mirriam-Webster. In a press release, they stated, “The number one word of the year, receiving the largest number of user- requests by a wide margin, is ‘blog’” Their dictionary definition is "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer." According to Blogger.com, “A blog is your easy-to-use web site, where you can quickly post thoughts, interact with people, and more.” The word has been around since 1999, but only took off this year because of the explosion in world bloggers (people who blog - verb) who create blogs (noun). Blogging (noun) is the next big thing and will become as ubiquitous as texting, spamming, gaming, phishing, hacking, filesharing….

POSSIBLE WARM UPS / COOL DOWNS

1. CHAT:  Talk in pairs or groups about blogging, new technology, new words, web sites, the Internet… To make things more fun, try telling your students they only have one minute (or 2) on each chat topic before changing topics / partners. Change topic / partner frequently to energize the class.

2. MY FAVE WORDS: Ask students to write down their 3 favourite English words, and three words they don’t particularly like. Explain to partners their reasons. Teacher puts interesting / common words on board.

3. OTHER CULTURES: Students mill around and ask what new words have entered the lexicons in their languages. Teacher writes a variety on board with English translations

4. 2-MINUTE DEBATES: Students face each other in pairs and engage in the following (for-fun) 2-minute debates. Students A are assigned the first argument, students B the second. Rotate pairs to ensure a lively pace and noise level is kept: - New words are too trendy for me. vs. You have to keep up with the latest vocab. - I’m a traditionalist. It’s better for me to learn traditional vocabulary. vs No one uses old vocab. - The Internet is a great way to learn new vocab. vs Books (paper ones) and dictionaries (paper ones) are best. - Google, or other search engines, is the best way of finding collocations. vs. No, collocation dictionaries are the best way. - New computer words are for geeks, netizens, cybernerds…not for real people. Vs. Wrong! A personal diary should be personal and not be on the Web / Reading blogs are interesting. The Internet and e-mail is destroying English and other languages. Vs. Opposite dude.

5. GEEK SPEAK: Introduce the geek / nerd. Ask if there are any geek in the class. Introduce the term ‘geekspeak’. Have a quick geekspeak quiz, especially the words at the end of the article - texting, spamming, gaming, phishing, hacking, filesharing. This is especially good (useful) with messaging/texting abbreviations: FYI, TTFN, CU …

6. …AND THE WINNER IS…: Put some categories on the board for other 2004 winners. Brainstorm suggestions for students to discuss / vote on. E.g. file-sharing software / mp3 player / US politician / game / song / movie / happy event / mistake / etc etc etc

PRE-READING IDEAS

1. ‘BLOG’ WORD SEARCH: Look in your dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … of the word ‘blog’. In fact it isn’t in paper dictionaries, so the challenge is to attempt this without conventional dictionaries.

2. BLOGGING: Discuss reasons why people want to set up blogs and blog. What subject would you like to blog about? Create new members of the word family ‘blog’ (mine are ‘blog off’, ‘blogging hell’, ‘blog jam’, ‘bloggercize’, ‘blognophobia’, ‘blogpert’, but I won’t give my definitions here.

3. PHRASE MATCH: Match the following phrases based on the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible):

4. OTHER WINNERS: Match the words which came 2^nd to 10^th in the Mirriam-Webster awards. (Listed in descending order). Don’t forget to work on pronunciation – these words can be tricky

5. PRE-TELL: Try to pre-tell the contents of the article from the following contracted or two-word lexical terms: - word Oscar - most-searched - dictionary giant - press release - user- requests - wide mar gin - online journal - easy-to-use (OK there are 3 parts here) - took off - big thing

WHILE READING ACTIVITIES

1. 12-GAP-FILL:  Put the missing words under each paragraph into the gaps.

…And the Winner is… Blog

2. PHRASE MATCH: Check your answers to the word match exercise.

3. QUESTIONS: Make notes for questions you would like to ask the class about the article.

4. VOCABULARY:  Circle any words you do not understand. In groups pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find the meanings.

POST READING IDEAS

1. GAP-FILL: Check the answers to the gap-fill exercise.

2. QUESTIONS:  Ask the discussion questions you thought of above to your partner / group / class. Pool the questions for all students to share.

3. VOCABULARY: Go over the vocabulary you circled above.

4. STUDENT-GENERATED SURVEY: Pairs/Groups write down 3 questions based on the article. Conduct their surveys alone. Report back to partners to compare answers. Report to other groups / the whole class.

5. 10-MINUTE DEBATES: In pairs / groups, brainstorm ideas based on one of the ‘2-minute debates’ from above. Do the following to increase your involvement in language, ideas, opinion-giving, concept-familiarization, comfort and confidence with speaking…Take part in the debate, repeat the debate with same partner(s), repeat the debate with changed partners, talk about your role in the debate, talk about whether you agree with what you said in the debate, repeat all of the previous but with students now taking the opposite sides of their previous debates (change sides)

6. NEW STUFF: Express your experience, knowledge and opinion on the new pursuits of texting, spamming, gaming, phishing, hacking, filesharing, surfing (the Net)

HOMEWORK

1. VOCABULARY EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or the Google search field to build up more associations / collocations of each word.

2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find more information on blogging. Share your findings with your class next lesson.

3. BLOGGER.COM: Try the real thing yourself in English. Follow the simple steps at blogger.com, start a blog and see what happens. Report yo ur experiment in the next class.

4. RESEARCH: Choose one of the new pursuits in Post-Reading activities #7 and create a poster of explanation.

ANSWERS

PHRASE MATCH:

DEFINITIONS:

GAP FILL

… And the winner is… no, not a movie, b ut a word. It’s official, ‘blog’ a contraction of the term ‘web log’, won the equivalent of a word Oscar yesterday for being the most searched word on the Internet in 2004. This is according to dictionary giant Mirriam-Webster. In a press release, they stated, “The number one word of the year, receiving the largest number of user- requests by a wide margin, is ‘blog’” Their dictionary definition is "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer." According to Blogger.com, “A blog is your easy-to-use web site, where you can quickly post thoughts, interact with people, and more.” The word has been around since 1999, but only took off this year because of the explosion in world bloggers (people who blog - verb) who create blogs (noun). Blogging (noun) is the next big thing and will become as ubiquitous as texting, spamming, gaming, phishing, hacking, filesharing….