Age old advice has been to keep a diary or journal as a way to improve your writing and general language skills. The problem with this advice has often been the inability to find someone to offer you corrections. Meaning that you’re quite often reinforcing errors.
That’s kind of a problem!
How to solve this mild problem… Use the internet to your advantage. There are dozens of language exchange websites and portals around these days and I’ve tried out quite a few of them over the last few years. Some are useful and practical, others not so. I’ll give you a few inside tips so you don’t waste time registering at some of the places I’ve found less useful…. But by all means, use other sources; you may have more success than I did elsewhere… maybe my profile just isn’t appealing enough 
I’ll give you two links.. these are the two sites that I’ve found by far the most beneficial for me for the widest numbers of languages:
- Palabea
- Lang-8
Palabea is just your general language exchange type of community. You find friends, you send messages to one another and try to help each other out… typical language exchange, only online. I’ve made some pretty good e-pals on there and have improved my languages through the site somewhat. The site in general seems pretty serious and not a poor excuse for a dating website like some of the others out there… but it takes all sorts
Lang-8 on the other hand is something fantastic in my opinion. Not just a tool for language exchange or for people wanting to practice their target language. Lang-8 is a place I have suggested to many of my students and friends for extra practice. The premise behind the community is that you help out others learning your language (your L1) and in exchange you’ll get help in your target language. There isn’t the need to do all of the cold-calling and trying to make friends first… you can get help straight out the box!
Basically, all you do is write a journal and submit it… Then go find someone that’s posted a journal in your L1, correct it for them (takes you about 5 minutes!).. and when you’re done, your journal will usually have been corrected as well. It’s like having a personal tutor right there at your computer. It’s a seriously fantastic system – and no, I have nothing to do with Lang-8!
(If you’re a teacher, then suggest it to your students… let them keep an online journal for homework and have them give you their ID on the site… you can see their writing progress and offer a more personal correction if you feel the need)
