The first post

Good morning class and welcome to your new blog!

We're going to fill this up today with things that we've learnt about over the past one, two or three weeks. As a reminder (and for those who have been in class for less than three weeks), our topics were 'Globalisation', 'Emotions' and 'Manners'.

Once today's lesson is over, you can either forget about this blog and leave it to hang around on the Web, or you can add to it with new things that you learn from your English study. If you do, it can also be a way to stay in touch with your fellow classmates when you've all gone on somewhere else.

Perhaps you're new to blogging. Google Blog Search is a place you can go to for finding blogs on your topic of interest and getting a feel for what they're like.

Maybe you'd like to know how to add a link, like the ones above or this one to the Embassy CES website.

It doesn't have to be just text. You can also add pictures to your 'post' (blog entry), like the one below of Brighton station. Flickr.com is a good source of pictures, and if you use ones with a Creative Commons licence then people are happy for you to use their pictures in your work (so long as you mention their name).

Lewes Bonfire Night 2007 - Brighton Station, by Dominic's pics (not me, by the way!)

If you really want to spice up your post, you could even add video to it. Remember the happy song between Mr Bush and Mr Blair?

Of course, you may know all of these things already and so don't need me to tell you how to do them. If not though, please feel free to ask any questions you might have about how to make your post look more lively.

One more thing to think about when blogging is comments. You can leave a comment at the end of a post to let the writer know what you thought about it. Comments are useful ways to get online conversations going. If you leave one on somebody else's post, they may be more likely to do the same on yours.

So, what's next?

Well...you've got your list of keywords covering the past three weeks. Feed them into Google and see what comes up. Look for interesting articles related to your keywords. Find videos that give good examples of a new idiom you've picked up. Search for photographs that express some of the body language we've studied. Think of stories from your own life or country related to a topic we've covered. Write about what you find here on this blog. Read other people's posts and comment on them too.

By the end of the lesson, I'd hope to see at least two posts and two comments from everyone. After the lesson, it's up to you whether you choose to carry on or not.

Happy blogging and any questions, please ask!

Dom