“Taking written conversations into the language class”
[extracted from English Teaching Forum, volume 51, number 2, 2013, p.3]
[…] The goal of a dialogue journal “varies dramatically depending on whether the focus is on language structure, language for communication or language for empowerment” (Orem 2001, 73). Journals can function as a window into the learner’s mind if the teacher reads them, but they are mainly a place for students to keep an enduring record of what they have learned. Often it is in the act of writing a response that actual learning takes place, and ideally, this is how critical thinking develops. In a reading curriculum, journal writing gives students a way to engage with texts in a meaningful way that then can lead to critical literacy (Miller 2007).
Decide if the following sentences are TRUE (T) or FALSE (F) and then choose the alternative that contains the correct sequence:
I) The aim of a dialogue journal is only focused on language for communication.
II) The real learning occurs in the act of writing a response.
III) The learner’s mind is a window and the teacher reads it through it.
IV) In an ideal way, critical thinking is developed in the act of writing a response.
V) Recent learning occurs in the act of writing a response.
