Enhancing literacy and collaborative skills through blogging: the teenage language learner

Abstract

B logs are considered to have made an intervention in many English as a foreign language contexts. The architecture of the platform is thought to give authorship, a readership, and ownership of one's work, and encourage collaborative learning. The present chapter focusses on an exploratory research study which took place in a private language school setting in Greece. The study included 52 teenage learners who were introduced to Edublogs for the first time. The aim of the study was to (1) determine the frequency and form of peer feedback, (2) investigate the impact of blogs on students' collaborative skills, and (3) to investigate the progress made in students' literacy skills with the integration of blogs in the curriculum. Questionnaires were distributed to examine participants' impression of blogs and the effect it had on their learning.

A Systematic Review of Blogging Practices in Teaching EFL/ESL/Sustavni pregled praksi pisanja mrežnoga dnevnika u poučavanju EFL / ESL

“…It is evident from qualitative analysis that blogging practice in the field is reported to both make contributions to students' learning from each other through feedback or comments on blog posts (Bener & Yildiz, 2019;Bhattacharya & Chauhan, 2010;Gedera, 2012;Giannikas, 2019;Grami, 2012;Huang, 2016;Kitchakarn, 2012a;Kitchakarn, 2014b;Lakarnchua & Wasanasomsithi, 2013;Ozkan, 2011;Roy, 2016;Vurdien, 2013;Yeh et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2014) and develop interaction among them (Ahluwalia et al, 2011;Al-Qallaf & Al-Mutairi, 2016;Bhattacharya & Chauhan, 2010;Gedera, 2012;Istifci, 2011;Mompean, 2010;Ozkan, 2011;Pinkman, 2005;Rojas Álvarez, 2011;Sun & Chang, 2012;Termsinsuk, 2015;Trajtemberg & Yiakoumetti, 2011;Zhang et al, 2014). Making comments and suggestions to peers' blog posts is instrumental in developing students' self-reflection (Bener & Yildiz, 2019) in respect of helping them realise their own errors and progress (Giannikas, 2019), which in turn enables them to adopt a critical eye for analysing their own writing (Grami, 2012). For instance, a study with students studying for the Certificate in Advanced English (CAE) examination concluded that students generally perceived peer feedback as useful, motivational, and encouraging, helping them to be more reflective on their own thoughts and errors.…”

“…Drawing on data collection tools such as questionnaires (Ahluwalia et al, 2011;Aljumah, 2012;Al-Qallaf & Al-Mutairi, 2016;Featro & DiGregorio, 2016;Gedera, 2012;Giannikas, 2019;Gunduz, 2016;Huang, 2016;Istifci, 2011;Kitchakarn, 2012a;Kitchakarn, 2014b;Koç & Koç, 2016;Kung, 2018;Pinkman, 2005;Sulaiman & Kassim, 2011;Wan & Tan, 2011;, interviews, and artefacts like blog posts or notes (Chew & Lee, 2013;Grami, 2012;Lizarazo Jara, 2012;Lin et al, 2013;Pinkman, 2005), 21 of the reviewed studies (39.62 %) pointed out that students found blogging activities enjoyable, beneficial, and satisfactory for their language learning. For instance, the study of Koc and Koc (2016) performed with undergraduate students partaking in a blog-mediated EFL course highlighted that almost all students found use of blogs useful and a contributory factor in their learning of conceptual knowledge regarding linguistic subjects.…”

“…With regard to the reported cognitive advantages of blogging, reviewed studies ascertained improvement in students' English language skills such as vocabulary, grammar, writing, and reading skills (Aljumah, 2012;Al-Qallaf & Al-Mutairi, 2016;Arslan & Şahin-Kızıl, 2010;Chew & Lee, 2013;Gedera, 2012;Giannikas, 2019;Huang, 2016;Kashani et al, 2013;Kitchakarn, 2014;Koç & Koç, 2016;Lin, 2015;Lizarazo Jara, 2012;Pinkman, 2005;Rojas Álvarez, 2011;Shen, 2013;Sun, 2010;Termsinsuk, 2015;. For example, research done with primary students using blogs for a semester underscored that they displayed more positive attitude towards learning English, with considerable improvement in writing, spelling, and grammar skills (Al-Qallaf & Al-Mutairi, 2016).…”

“…A challenge which emerged from the reviewed studies (n=7) is a lack of satisfactory feedback from peers or teachers, which results in students' confusion as to how to give feedback on peers' blog posts, implying that this might be a barrier for students to carry on sharing their ideas and improve their language skills (Aljumah, 2012;Giannikas, 2019;Gunduz, 2016;Huang, 2016;Kung, 2018;Mompean, 2010;Yeh et al, 2019). For instance, studies carried out by Aljumah (2012) and Giannikas (2019) laid emphasis on the issues of guidance for and mindset of students. Not only lack of sufficient guidance on how to leave appropriate feedback to peers' blog entries/posts but also the mindset that feedback is best given by the teacher discouraged students from taking part in a given blog task without commenting on their peers' feedback.…”

“…It is also evident from these studies that online presence of a teacher as a facilitator or a guide in blogosphere plays a key role in sustaining students' motivation, ensuring clarity of a given task, providing feedback, and making students engage in blog activities more as active participants (Chew & Lee, 2013;Deng & Yuen, 2012;Featro & DiGregorio, 2016;Lin et al, 2013;Shen, 2013;Yeh et al, 2019). Arousal of students' negative feelings was reported as a challenge that emerged from the fear of being negatively criticised or delivery of negative comments by peers regarding blog posts (Aljumah, 2012;Giannikas, 2019;Gunduz, 2016;Lin et al, 2013;Ozkan, 2011). In the research of Lin et al (2013), students' blogging incentives were found to be inhibited by feelings of anxiety and embarrassment about potential negative reactions towards their blog posts, thereby discouraging them from staying on the given task and leaving them demotivated to interact with the given task or peers.…”