Five Reasons Why Every English as a Foreign Language Teacher Should Blog

Deeper and Deeper into the 21st Century
As we delve deeper and deeper into the 21st century, blogs and blogging are becoming an essential tool for English and foreign language teaching professionals world wide. Why is this happening? Here are eight reasons why every English or foreign language teacher should have a blog. Two popular platforms are Blogger.com and Word Press.

Reason 1: Blogging Promotes Online Writing Skills
Welcome to the twenty-first century. The internet has all but superseded virtually every other form of media. Reading and writing for the web is no longer a luxury. It is an essential item for practicing professionals from many different fields. By reaching further and further into your own world for blogging inspiration, you’ll almost automatically be building your own skill sets in multiple areas of your personal and professional life.

Reason 2: Blogging and Writing Consistently Builds Language Proficiency
Whether you’re an English as a foreign language teacher or a foreign language learner, blogging and writing will definitely aid you in building your language skills. You’ll need to read more, brush up on your English grammar, spelling and vocabulary on a regular basis. This will in turn, be essential in building your English or foreign language proficiency.

Reason 3: Blogging Provides an Outlet for Sharing
Have you had things happen in your class room that you’d like to tell others about? What about the humorous things that learners say or ask? Are there strange, unusual or interesting occurrences in your EFL classes? Wouldn’t you like a way to consistently share these with your fellow EFL teachers worldwide? By blogging you most certainly can.

Reason 4: Blogging is Addictive and Fun
Often people find that when they’ve adapted to writing or blogging on a regular and consistent basis, it becomes additive and more enjoyable. You do it because you want to and not because you have to. Then, when you start getting regular feedback and comments from regular readers and subscribers, your sense of pride will help you to keep the information flowing.

Reason 5: Blogging Builds Grammar Knowledge
Keep spell check and grammar check turned on in your computer or word processing software and you’ll continually be challenged to update your knowledge of grammar and structure in English or the foreign language you’re using to blog. You’ll also start looking into new ways to express yourself, without being repetitive or redundant. Those little green lines will quickly become your improvement markers.

Finally, To Blog or Not to Blog?
So there you have them. Five reasons why every English or foreign language teaching professional should blog. Add to these that blogging is also a great way to keep up with current events and developments in the fields of language learning and education, and you’re practically out of excuses not to get started. How about it? Are you ready to start an ELT blog of your own? In a companion article post, “Three Benefits of Blogging for English as a Foreign Language Teachers” we’ll go further in depth on the theme of blogging for ELT.


Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, prolific writer, expert author and public speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 120 countries. Get your FREE E-book,"If you Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" by requesting the title at: lynchlarrym@gmail.com Need a blogger or copywriter to promote your school, institution, service or business or an experienced writer and vibrant SEO content for your website, blog or newsletter? Then E-mail me for further information.