I haven’t been writing much lately while preparing for this post and also reinstalling windows on my computer. When I installed windows this time I didn’t backup Outlook Express and lost a few emails I had recieved from readers that I haven’t replied to yet. If you are one of those readers please resend the email.

History
I started this blog on January 29th last year with the purpose of

The main purpose of this blog is to help me consolidate and organize my thoughts as they pertain to my readings for my Masters of Applied Linguistics courses and my teaching context. The plan here is that by writing about what I am reading before I have to write an actual essay it will help me to better understand and be able to better articulate my thoughts when it comes time to produce.

...I won’t be too concerned as my main purpose is not become “famous” but rather to improve my own understanding of linguistics and how I can apply theory to my teaching.

I feel I have had success with the first part of this goal and the second part remains true as I have not become famous (only have ~100 hits a day) though I have picked up a readership, surprise surprise.

Blingers Expansion (not just my waistline)
Of course I have also expanded on my blog since I first started it. The first addition I completed was the ESL & EFL Blog Ring which now has 19 members. I am however considering mothballing the web ring as it doesn’t really generate traffic or do much of anything for me any more. Following that I added a polling script. I would really like to see the polls added again, but after I switched from Movable Type to Expression Engine there were compatibility issues. There is word that a polling module may be available in the future - I hope it comes soon.

My second addition to the site is the Linguistics & ESL Link Directory which I introduced on May 8, 2004, there are not a lot of links, but most of them are useful and I am still accepting link submissions at any time.

Then I switched to Expression Engine following the big MT licensing uproar. One underused aspect of my site is the book review blog which I started and now barely ever use. Only three entries, but I’m not giving up on it, I will write more there after I finish graduate school and I’m still open to guest reviews.

My final blog expansion was announced here: It is also by far the most successful (so far) - Let’s Learn Korean. The original title was 한국어 습득, which I took to mean Korean Language Acquisition but later found out was awkward sounding. I changed it to 한국어 연습장 (Korean Practice Room) with the official English title being Let’s Learn Korean. This blog has been great fun to write with and design. I’m particulary happy with the FAQ which is the first FAQ designed in this manner with EE. Also of interest is the Photo Gallery which currently only has pictures I’ve taken myself, but later when I can organize the permissions properly will allow submissions by members.

Favorite Posts

I just realized that I have 405 entries, 613 comments, and 27 trackbacks. I had no idea that I had been that prolific in my writing over the past year. Prior to launching Let’s Learn Korean there were approximately 50 members of Blinger, but now there are 111 with most of the additions coming due to interest in that blog. I wish there were some method to keep membership seperated based on blog affiliation but there isn’t.
Long term readers will be aware of many of my interests including that of Moodle for which I have created an entire category - I encourage you to read that and visit the moodle site. I will now sift through all these entries and pick my favorites to highlight.

1. The First Entry: This is my inaugural entry - there are 3 others before it but they were written later and then pre-dated to appear as earlier entries.
2. Exploding Whale Not the most language oriented post on this site, but it is only the third day of writing and I was still searching for my voice and a focus. Anyhow I still get hits for this link.
3. Vocabulary: Early in my writing I wrote several entries on new and interesting words that I came across. This category is not used so much lately, but there are some good entries here. WYSIWYG, sesquidecennium, dormcest, & two words that I coined technotard and garbage fishing.
4. Learner Autonomy is something I am big on and two entries worth reading are here & here.
5. Related to this is the need for Goal Settingand my entry in September on English Hungry and finally Learner Reflection
6. Critical Thinking part 1 & part 2
7. A recently revived discussion on being Stonewalled when speaking Korean which apparently is not limited to learning Korean at all.
8. In April I wrote about again when i started taking Korean classes again.
9. I attended Oxford Teacher Development day in the spring and wrote a 5 part piece on that. Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V
based on Nina Spada’s presentation titled Myths and Misconceptions of Communicative Language Teaching.
10. If you are interested in learning why I am doing my distance MA from Macquarie University then you should read Why Macquarie?
11. Swearing Corrupts Language
12. Non-Verbal Communication is a post I enjoy but didn’t receive any comments
13. Just because you speak English doesn’t mean we understand you: Bi-Culturalism
14. And then there was the big Censorship debate: Interestingly I know of one site that is still being censored due to the occaisional hit in my sitemeter logs. sends me traffic but I cannot visit without using a proxiy. I actually cannot even read the RSS feed.
15. One of the funniest Korean films I have every seen Please, Teach me English don’t forget to check out the trailer.
16. and finally: A presentation by Rod Ellis titled Controversies in Grammar Teaching: An SLA Perspective

The Future

So where does that leave me with regards to the future of this blog? I will of course be writing about the final two courses I am taking for my M.A., my classes, conferences I attend, and my thoughts & reflections on readings I undertake on my own as well as ideas raised by the various linguistic & teaching oriented blogs I read. I am also sure that I will expand into areas I haven’t yet thought of.

Thanks
Special thanks to all my readers for comments, encouragement. Thanks also goes out to Forum 4 Bloggers for advice on layout & design of my various blogging projects, to Expression Engine for giving me a free copy of the greatest, most verstatile blogging software on the planet and tons of technical support.