From University Students to a Community of Learners: Can Blogs Support This?

Language learners have a need to complement their classroom learning activities with experiences outside of the classroom and to interact with other speakers and learners of the language to practice the language. Communities play a major role in supporting language learners. We consider a class of university students studying French as a community of language learners. We have used a mobile community blog to establish and to support a sense of community among the students in the classroom as well as outside, in particular when some of the students travel to France as a part of their studies. The blog was intended to facilitate active participation, social interaction and collaboration among the members of the community. This paper evaluates the use of the blog and analyses the results to identify issues that are important in supporting a community of mobile language learners.