Blogathon 2013

British Council organised a blogging competition on their webpage for English teachers,TeachingEnglish. It was a blogging marathon  for English teachers  from Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Hungary, Israel, Romania, Russia, Spain and Uzbekistan.

Blogathon  lasted for a month, from 4th February until 4th March. English teachers created blogs on TeachingEnglish and wrote Blogathon posts not longer than 250 words, read and commented on other participants' posts.  

The blog entries made reference to a variety of ELT themes and class activities. A lot of interesting and original content was shared. All bloggers were very positive and respectful. It was interesting to take part in various discussions on the usual ELT topics  but also to learn about  different teaching situations  and problems.

After the end of the Blogathon, British Council  team chose the winners. Three teachers got the first prize – the participation at the IATEFL annual conference in Liverpool  - as roving reporters.

All my Blogathon posts can be read on  bsanja'sblog on TeachingEnglish, but also on Blogathon page of this blog, because I'd like to keep them in my diary, too.

I'm very happy and excited to be one of the teachers travelling to Liverpool on 7 April.

Taking part in the TeachingEnglish Blogathon 2012

I've just registered for my first blogathon, the blogging marathon that will take place on the TeachingEnglish site.

I got the information about it from British Council Croatia and read about how to take part on their site. I got interested for two reasons:

1. the winner gets an all expenses paid trip to Glasgow to attend the IATEFL teachers' conference in March


2. even if I don't win, it helps a lot with my New Year's resolution to blog more regularly.

My task is to write posts from 16 January until 12 February, about the topics like

• dealing with disruptive students,


• keeping teacher talking time down, so students speak more than we do,


• networking with colleagues nationally or internationally,


• some other topics related to teaching. Of course, my posts should be interesting to other teachers.

I've read carefully the tips for writing, which advise:

• original content,


• friendly and informal style,


• posts which are quite short, not longer than 250 words,


• tagging posts so other participants could find them, read and comment ,


• attractive titles,


• referencing any external sources,


• bullets and paragraphs to make posts readable,


• checking out blogs of other participants to comment on their posts.

I quite like the idea of writing for a period of time with a group colleagues as readers in mind, who will check out my blog from time to time (at least I hope so!).

I guess I'm ready for this blogging adventure.