ESL Blogs

The burning question is, "What do you think is the best section on EC that has made your English learning improved? Why?"

Like some of you may had known or gauged that I'm an old member of EC. I stumbled upon EC when I was in South Korea for three months way back in 2006. I became like the prodigal daughter of EC somewhat when I left it for a few times but always came back like a bad penny. If I had to answer this question during my previous life in EC, the answer would be different.

Previously, my life in EC only hovered around the chat room. Though it was hard to see any tangible improvement to my English, I would like to say that somewhat, my English improved a little bit with the help of a few native Chat Admins (previously it was called Admin rather than Moderator). However, since text chatting needs speed, it was not really helpful for many people especially for learners. This is still holds true in today chat room environment of EC.

In my nth life in EC, I started to read and write blogs. I still remember that it was in February 2013 when I decided to take another step in my English journey. But during the early stage of my attempt in blog writing, the chat room still occupied most of my time in here. Do I learnt much in the chat room? Sometimes yes, and most of the time a BIG NO. When there was/were native English speakers or English teachers like Lady Anne, Dayne, Tony Hawk, or Chuck, just to name a few, in the chat room, I could ask them about English or they would correct my mistakes. But like I said before, you need to have have an amazing speed to be able to catch up with text chatting. 

However, nowadays, I seldom enter the chat room. So whenever I entered EC, most of the time I only spent my time in the blog section or photo section. Photo section is to feast my eyes with the beauty of nature through members' photos, but I don't think it helps much in my English learning. I seldom browsed through the video section, so even though some of the videos shared in the section are amazing and good for learners, I don't have the patience nor focus to watch them diligently. 

So back to the original question posed by Lady Anne, "What do you think is the best section on EC that has made your English learning improved? Why?", I would definitely say the blog section. Like I say in my comment in one of the members' blogs, consciously or unconsciously, when we started blogging, we also started to observe more on the correct usage of grammar. We also started to dig our thick skull and tried to polish our vocabulary bank and used less frequently used words. 

The bonus and best part is that, members are more willing to point out my mistakes and correct them. 

I believed the old adage of practice makes perfect hold true in my case. I may not be perfect in my writing even as hard as I try to, but at least I will make less mistakes as I used to do.