The Use of Students' Personal Self-Reflective Blog For Academic Writing Activities Among ESL Tertiary Level Students (original) (raw)
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Utilising Self-Reflective Blog For ESL Writing Activities
PRIME, 2021
This case study investigates the use of students' personal self-reflective blog for academic writing activities among ESL tertiary level students at MARA University of Technology. The study was conducted for a period of eight weeks among 18 ESL students who were taking an ESL English proficiency course which include an academic writing skill. The blog was part of the special online activities for the students enrolled in a supplementary online writing program which was developed using a Learning Management System known as EDU 2.0. The research tools used were in the form of students' reflective online journal entries and a set of questionnaires. The results indicated that the students viewed their personal self-reflective blog to be effective in helping them to be inquisitive and critical during their writing process which enabled them to produce better written essays.
Teachers or lecturers who apply reflective essays into their writing classes still cannot be said to be improving. Researchers have shown that reflective essays can make it easier for students to write, let alone express their feelings about their experiences. The use of online blogging is also a good medium when technology is developing rapidly. However, writing reflective essays is still the main focus for researchers. The application of reflective essay still attracts a bit of student enthusiasm. This research study shows students' perceptions of reflective essay writing by using online blogging, an online blogging platform as a forum for learning in creative writing classes. This qualitative research uses a questionnaire that is applied to determine student perceptions. Although 30 students took creative writing classes, researchers only took 5 participants as class representatives. In addition, they also showed that reflective writing essays can improve their fluency in writing and foster reading awareness. Online blogging is as a media for publishing reflective essays. By using online blogging, their writing can be read by anyone. This study is recommended so that it can be applied in the writing class, especially the creative writing classes in universities in Indonesia.
Blog-assisted feedback: Its affordances in improving College ESL students’ Academic writing skills
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In the 21st century, academic writing remains as a challenging skill to learn. ESL (English as a Second Language) learners, in fact, sometimes are faced with writing apprehension and poor writing skills. Being a qualitative and quantitative research, this study aimed at investigating the use of blog-assisted feedback in academic writing. Eleven ESL students in a tertiary level institution in the Southern Luzon, the Philippines, selected purposively, participated in the study. The study focused on the following: (1) determining the students’ weaknesses in and attitudes towards academic writing before blog-assisted feedback; (2) using blog-assisted feedback as computer-mediated communication (CMC) tool through the feedbacking, revising, and editing stages of students’ writing; and (3) identifying students’ attitude towards writing after the blog-assisted feedback. The main data sources were the students’ blog-based messages and reflections, content analyzed using the framework of Treadwell (2010), and Zhang and Wildemuth (2011). Results showed that most of the students had weaknesses in and almost all of them had negative attitudes towards writing. In connection to this, blog-assisted feedback was found meritorious in improving writing skills. Such innovation can likewise be concomitant with the students’ improved attitudes towards writing; hence, blog-assisted feedback is recommendable in facilitating certain stages of the writing process, i.e. feedbacking, revising, and editing.
EFL Students' Perspectives on the Use of Blog towards Their Writing Performance
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Obtaining English Foreign Language (EFL) students’ views dealing with their preferences of blog to assist their writing skills in practice is needed in order to make them more helpful in writing practice. This research aims at finding out significant correlation between students’ perspective on the use blog in writing activity and their writing performance. It is correlational study that correlates two variables: blog use and writing performance. The result of this research shows that there is no significant correlation between the students’ perception on blog use in writing activities with their writing performances. Although the students have high and positive perception toward blog use in writing actives done by the teacher in the class, it does not give high response to the students’ writing performance. It happens because some extraneous and possible factors may influence the result of this research. Finally, this research is expected to contribute towards enriching teaching ap...
University level EFL students’ self blogging to enhance writing efficacy
In the field of foreign language education, Web 2.0 technologies put forward new scopes for both teachers and students. Among these technologies, blogs have a remarkable place since they provide teachers and learners with new horizons. Among the three types of blogging which are tutor blog, learner blog and class blog (Campbell, 2003), self-blogging and its role on the writingefficacy of learners in writing have received the least attention in research. The present study aims to investigate the impact of self-blogging on the writing efficacy levels of university level advanced foreign language learners. Data for the study came from writing-efficacy scale (Yavuz-Erkan and İflazoğlu-Saban, 2011) and the semi-structured interviews with the participants. The results and the implications were discussed in the following sections.
Enhancing writing skills through blogs in an EFL class
The EuroCALL Review, 2012
Today Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs, are presenting both teachers and learners with new horizons in the field of language teaching and learning. A blog is an online journal which can be continuously updated by its users (Matheson, 2004). People can write their views at their own pace without space and time constraints. Blogs aid in the development of interpretive and critical thinking skills. The present study explores how a blog as a computermediated tool engages a group of EFL learners, at a language school in Spain, in reflective and collaborative learning, and argues that personal blogs can motivate students to build on their writing skills through self-reflection and peer feedback. The students had become more careful with planning their task and error correction before submitting their work. Collaborative skills were also fostered through students’ regular interaction on the blogs.
Investigating the Use of Blog for Teaching Writing Courses to Undergraduates
Investigating the Use of Blog for Teaching Writing Courses to Undergraduates, 2022
In contrast to the product approach to writing, the process approach entails planning, drafting editing and revising stages. Blog an online platform for practicing process approach has long been used by EFL teachers to develop their students' writing skill. But in Bangladeshi rural higher education context, its efficacy is yet to be investigated. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of using blogs to enhance student writing skills at tertiary level at a private university located in a rural area of Bangladesh. It focuses on the advantages of incorporating blogs as a virtual writing platform for teaching writing to a group of students used to the traditional product approach. Research participants were 98 undergraduate level students of third semester in the Department of English at a private university in Bangladesh. The research method is mixed based on primary and secondary data. Online survey was conducted on 98 participants and the test scores of 25 samples were seen through random sampling techniques. The primary numerical data were analyzed through the Google form and the secondary data were manually analyzed. We found students' attitude to writing in blogs more positive in comparison with the traditional way of writing. Students felt writing in blogs to be more effective and motivating due to its continuous interactive feedback and correction and editing facilities. The test score also indicates gradual development of writing skill. It indicates that in spite of being a new platform to the participants, it can be effective to develop the rural students' writing skill.
Computer Assisted Language Learning, 2011
Today Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs, are presenting both teachers and learners with new horizons in the field of language teaching and learning. A blog is an online journal which can be continuously updated by its users [Matheson, D. (2004). Weblogs and the epistemology of the news: Some trends in online journalism. New Media & Society, 6, 443–468.]. Blogs are easy to construct without the need of understanding HTML, and their appearance and content can be enhanced through the use of pictures, audio and video files. Due to their asynchronous nature, blogs allow people to write and publish their thoughts and views at their own pace without space and time constraints. In language learning, the use of blogs is considered to be similar to that of journal writing [McLeod, 2001; as cited in Lowe, C. (2004). Moving to the public: Weblogs in the writing classroom. Into the Blogosphere. Retrieved April 16, 2009, from http://Blog.lib.umn.edu//blogosphere/moving\_to\_public\_pf.html\]. Hence, students use the basis of their worldviews to shape and interpret their own meanings in writing. Using task-based activities to encourage students’ interaction, the present study explores how a blog as a computer-mediated tool engages a group of English as a Foreign Language learners at a language school in Spain in reflective and collaborative learning. Eleven students who were preparing for the Certificate in Advanced English (CAE) Cambridge examination were involved in a study that lasted for five months. All the participants created their personal blogs so that they could read each other's views, share ideas and comment on their peers’ postings. The activities focused on the specific writing tasks (letter writing, report, proposal, article, etc.) comprised in the aforementioned examination. Consequently, the project aimed to (1) enhance writing skills in specific writing tasks, (2) perceive the effect of the learners’ feedback and (3) foster collaborative skills. Drawing on the triangulated data collated from the blog entries, class discussions based on peers’ feedback and questionnaires, this paper argues that personal blogs can motivate students to build their writing skills through self-reflection and peer feedback. The engagement in negotiation of meaning between peers led to better planning and the choice of the right register/style required in each task prior to writing and submitting their work. Collaborative skills were also fostered through students’ regular interaction in the blogs. For meaningful learning to take place, pedagogical intervention could encourage students to take their peers’ comments into account so that they can edit their own work with a view to enhancing their writing tasks and producing mistake-free texts.
Error Analysis of EFL Student's Reflective Journal Writing on Online Blogging
Eka yuni kurniati, 2020
English writing was still a problem for students in expressing their ideas into patterns that were different from their native language, it can be proven from the number of EFL students who still made errors in their reflective journal writing. In this research, the researcher explored errors that occurred in the reflective journal of EFL students on online blogging 7th semester. This research was conducted at State Islamic University of North Sumatera during the semester 2019/2020 Academic Year, 10 students of English language in the seventh semester were taken as sample of this study. The data source was EFL student’s reflective journal writing products on their personal online blogging account which was made when they were in the sixth semester. The researcher used descriptive qualitative method which conducted by collecting data, classifying data, analyzing data, and drawing conclusion. Technique of collecting data is documentation. The data was analyzed based on Surface Strategy Taxonomy. This result of this study showed that there were 146 errors occurred on EFL students’ reflective journal consist of 38 errors were found on omission type, 20 errors were found on addition type, 60 errors were found on the misformation type and the last is 28 errors were found on misordering type. It can be seen that the highest total is misformation error and the lowest total is addition error. This study suggests that EFL students still lack of understanding of grammatical rules, consequently, they still produce many misformation error in their reflective journal. Keywords: Error Analysis, Reflective Journal, Online Blogging, and Surface Strategy Taxonomy