Bridging the language and cultural gaps: The use of blogs

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate how the use of an online journal, a bilingualblog, can contribute tofilling in the language and cultural gaps of foreign lan-guage learners. This case study focuses on the participation, interaction, motiva-tion, language acquisition, feedback and cultural input improved by students ofSpanish as a Foreign Language at the University of Queensland in Australia andstudents of English as a Foreign Language at the Universidad de Las Palmas deGran Canaria in Spain. It demonstrates how this learner-directed instructionalcontext allows intercultural andlanguageexchanges,firstly between partici-pants, as a peer revision exercise and secondly, as collaborative work and a dis-cussion platform in the blogGranCanBrisbaneEspañolEnglish