As an ESL teacher, part of my challenge is to get the students to want to express themselves. I want them to want to communicate enough to go through the hard work of doing it in a second language. Writing in the second language is also a way for those who are a bit too shy to speak the second language (and too young to chug a beer to loosen up their tongues). I like for my students to have a variety of options to choose from when writing about a topic. Blogs offer the opportunity to provide links and choice to my students to respond to. It can provide a forum to introduce topics and create discussions.