Journal writing is an open, unevaluated form of free writing that can be used by L1 and L2 students, teachers, and researchers to help them develop language fluency and proficiency, to promote reflective and critical thinking, to contribute to research activities, and to communicate with self, peers, and teachers. The main point of journal writing is to promote evaluation-free reflection and communication, and when written in the L2, to encourage fluency rather than be used as a graded and corrected assignment. This article consists of a series of journal entries about my experiences with different kinds of journal writing over many years. The entries describe “dissertation journals,” language learning journals, private and shared journals, journals for promoting critical and analytical reflection, and journals written for research purposes.
Keywords: evaluation-free writing, fluency, language development, reflection, response to reading, research tool
