JOURNALS AND DIARIES

RAMMIL P. LOPEZ

The development in education of the diary and journal as research tool as data has occurred through teachers of English. Journals are personal documents that can be used as a research tool to capture reflections and encounters. Journals can also promote educational objectives when used between teachers and students in the classroom and encourages description, interpretation on the part of the teacher as well as the student.

The journal acts as a a narrative technique and record events, thoughts, and feelings that have importance for the writer. As a record kept by a student, it can inform the teacher researcher about changing thoughts and new ideas and progression of learning. Mckernan (1991) list three types of traditional diaries or journals:

• Intimate journal, which is extremely personal and full of personal sentiments, confessions, and a log of events as seen through the individual eyes of the writer. An intimate journal is written is written in almost every day.

• The memoir, which is a more impersonal documents, written in less often, and aspires to be more objective and not concentrated on personal feelings. The records of war correspondents are good example.

• The log which is more of a running record of events, such as a list of meetings attended and calls made.

Practitioner researcher, particularly teachers of English, have been using journals as a way to communicate more intimately with students for a long time. As an evaluation tools, journals can inform the researcher about his or her teaching as no other method can and allow a teacher to implement curricular changes rapidly. Journals also increase writing and communication skills with students.

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The author is SST III at Diosdado Macapagal High School, Floridablanca, Pampanga