In one of the education journal articles that I have read, an English teacher recommended personal blogging among his students. He gave several good reasons, some of which I am going to cite, but he also cautioned that a personal blog may also be a way for students to go against others, the school, the community and even the country as a whole. (Definitely, this sounds a little bit absurd.) Well, as to my experience, asking students to create and maintain their own personal blogs is both fulfilling and frustrating.
Creating and more so, maintaining a personal blog improve the student's knowledge about himself. This does not stop at what he knows and how he manipulates the language, but really a knowledge of himself as a person. It serves as one Johari's window. Because writing is introspective, posting something, anything in one's blog requires reflective thinking. Reflection and introspection help the students know more themselves as a person, as a student and as a Filipino.
The downside of blogging however is quite a number though. One there is, is difficulty of manipulating the language to suit individual special needs depending upon the situation and occasion. Several students find it very difficulty to express themselves using the English language. It is not that they do not have anything to say, but it has to do with how to express what they feel in grammatically correct and structurally acceptable syntax.
Isn't it therefore, that blogging may help improve the students' reflective thinking and written communicative skill if they keep on blogging? This may be a sound judgment following Thorndike's law o exercise-the more you keep on doing one thing, the more that you become good at doing that thing!
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