It's been a slow month in the way of system updates so I thought I would take the time to talk a bit about the recent explosion of blogging, and to a lesser extent podcasting, on the internet. I'll also talk a bit about the things that we're doing to take advantage of these trends at The Linguist. Many people don't understand what a blog is. For many, the word conjures up images of some obscure technical thing. The reality is that a blog is simply a personal web page or journal that visitors can read and comment on. Combined with easy to use blogging software this makes it very easy for individuals to post their thoughts on their personal web page for everyone to view. If bloggers have interesting things to say, then others will be interested in reading them and they will visit the blog.
In a way, podcasts are nothing more than an audio version of blogs. They are distributed in the same way, as all podcasts are in the form of blog posts. Of course, the content of podcasts tends to be a little different and can very often take the format of a radio show but it is a convenient way for an individual to broadcast audio on the web.
At The Linguist, we have a few blogs and podcasts that we run and that we think are extremely useful to English learners… and all language learners for that matter. The first of these blogs, of course, is Steve's Blog, The Linguist on Language. This is where you will find many of Steve's tips on language learning and observations on all aspects of language learning from the importance of grammar to the examination of the teaching methods and approaches of others. We also run a podcast on this blog, which means that we periodically will be posting audio files on the blog containing conversations between Steve and other language learning experts and enthusiasts.
We have recently created a new Linguist Community Blog to which we have been posting some more fun features. In addition to news and updates about the system as they occur, we have been posting the corrected writing of our members, anonymously of course. These are posted under the category Members' Chronicles and make for very interesting reading. You will also be able to subscribe to The Linguist on The Loose podcast here. This podcast includes conversations between Steve and Linguist members. Typically, these conversations will be both in English and then in the native language of the member (Assuming Steve speaks their language). Come and listen and read to what our members have to say. It's well worth it! I should mention that both blogs and podcasts can be subscribed to. This way you will automatically receive new posts and podcasts as they are posted. To do this you will have to use a blog aggregator program which is freely available on the web or for podcasts you can find dedicated podcast aggregators. For further information, click on the icons in the RSS Feeds area on both of the Linguist blogs.
Lastly, I want to direct you all to the links at the bottom of our front page. Here you will see links to individual podcasts with our learners and recent writing samples. You will see links to interesting podcasts with Steve in different languages. And you will see links to our Linguist blogs as well as links to blogs of current Linguist members who are blogging about their learning experiences on our site. Visiting these blogs will help you to quickly understand the world of blogging and podcasts and hopefully inspire you to investigate these phenomena further. Of course, any of you who have a blog or who will start blogging and would like us to add your blog to this list, please contact us. Enjoy!
