Photo courtesy of Loughborough University Library
- What is a blog carnival?
- Think of it as a curation of blog posts on a certain topic done on a regular basis. Normally, a person or group decides on a topic to write about and then invites others to blog about that topic on their own site by a set time. Once that is done, a designated person, usually rotated amongst volunteers, collects those posts and makes one post that succinctly summarizes each post (usually 1-3 sentences) and provides a link to each of them.
- Why have a blog carnival?
- There are a number of reasons to either host or participate in a blog carnival, but the main premise is to join like minded people to share their ideas and expertise on a topic and make it easy for others to locate that information.
- What does ELT mean?
- ELT stands for English Language Teaching and incorporates those who teach English as a language to those who don’t speak it natively. This is a broad term that includes those who work domestically as well as internationally and with all age groups and situations. There are other terms that are used to identify these groups more specifically. We chose ELT so as to make the group more inclusive.
- Why ELT research?
- The idea of this group is to encourage ELT professionals to think about their field in a deeper way. As teaching practitioners, we are often caught up in what happens in our own classroom, that we miss out on the seeing the larger picture. While not everyone is able to or wants to do research, we believe that it is important to examine research so as to not be caught up in just doing things without thinking. This is a form of professional development that is often overlooked by busy teachers.
- What have a specific website for this group?
- The reason for this site is twofold: it makes it easier for others to find the blog carnival posts, and it also provides a place for those who want to participate, but don’t have a blog on which to post their writing. If someone wishes to have their post placed on this site, they can make a request through the contact page.
- Are there other ways that people can post information online without having a blog?
- Yes. I would suggest you read my post on the topic here.
- How do I participate in a blog carnival?
- Find an academic journal article related to the theme of that particular blog carnival. If you can find one that is open to everyone (ie. not behind a paywall), that would be helpful to those who don’t have access to the larger journal databases. Please don’t break copyright by downloading from a pay site and then posting the article elsewhere. If you need help finding an article, here is my Diigo list of open ELT journals and my post on how to use online search engines to find articles by topic.
- Don’t promote your own material in the blog. Find articles from other writers. If you want to share your own material, use the #eltresearch hashtag to share it on Twitter.
- Write a post interacting with the information found in the article. This could be that you agree or disagree, you apply it in a different way than was intended in the article, you test it in the classroom (action research), or anything else related to it. If possible, provide ideas that teachers can do to apply what you have learned to their classroom.
- Post your blog post on your own site. Make sure to mark on the post that this is a ELT Research Blog Carnival post (can be in the article or a note at the top or bottom of the post) along with a link to the blog carnival host instructions so others can join in.
- Share your post with the blog carnival host. This is up to the host on how this will be done, but it is common for people to email the link to the post to the host before the deadline.
- The host will write up a post with links to the various posts. This usually is done in an introduction to the topic for that carnival and a very short abstract of the post (1-3 sentences). This is then shared with all of the authors and posted on Twitter along with the #eltresearch hashtag.
ELT Research Blog Carnival 