Weblogs: a tool for EFL interaction, expression, and self-evaluation

Trajtemberg, Claudia; Yiakoumetti, Androula

doi:10.1093/elt/ccr015

Cited by 39 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The visibility of his blog to his friends motivated Carl to closely monitor his accuracy [29]: I must proofread (the blog). When I fell asleep, suddenly I found that I had made a mistake, like, missing an 's' after plural nouns.…”

Section: Active Exploration Of More Learning Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Popular Culture, English Out-of-class Activities, and Learner Autonomy among Highly Proficient Secondary Students in Hong Kong

Chan¹

2016

ujer

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper reports on how and why proficient learners of English in Hong Kong participated in popular culture, out-of-class activities, with an emphasis on their development of learner autonomy. Autonomy in language learning is defined as an individual's ability and responsibility to take charge of his or her own learning [1]. Out-of-class learning plays an important role in language learning and learner autonomy [2]. However, to most Hong Kong students, opportunities to learn English outside of classroom may not be obviously found but they do exist at a low cost, for example, popular culture like English movies, free English TV channels, online resources, social networking [2][3][4]. Most local learners seldom engaged in actual autonomous practices but they must seize the chances to practise the target language [5,6]. Thus, the study aimed at exploring how students can make better use of popular culture, out-of-class learning and foster greater learner autonomy in the local context. Six highly proficient secondary school students who reported to have participated in out-of-class learning were selected to join this largely qualitative multiple-case study. By way of semi-structured interviews and language learning journals, the study found that the case participants mainly engaged in self-initiated, interest-driven out-of-class learning, through which they improved their school performance and started to internalize English learning for their personal purposes and develop learner autonomy. It is also suggested that out-of-class learning and school performance promoted the growth of each other. Teachers should recognize the use of interest-driven, popular culture out-of-class activities to further establish the link between out-of-class and classroom-based learning.

show abstract

Section: Active Exploration Of More Learning Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Popular Culture, English Out-of-class Activities, and Learner Autonomy among Highly Proficient Secondary Students in Hong Kong

Chan¹

2016

ujer

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…• motivating learners to study a foreign language and culture; • using a foreign language and the Internet to meet learners' cognitive interests; • sorting understanding, uncovering new ideas and drawing conclusions [3,10,11,12,13].…”

Section: Short Paper Blogs As a Means To Enhance Writing Skills In Efmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blogs as a Means to Enhance Writing Skills in EFL Classes

Kuimova

Zvekov

2016

Int. J. Emerg. Technol. Learn.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-The current trend of higher education is the increasing share of independent individual and group work of students, as well as their practical and creative work. All these inevitably lead to the introduction of innovative educational technologies aimed at reaching syllabus goals. An active use of information and communication technologies enhances the learning in a content area and can be a great help to maintain the desired level of students' education. It allows advanced, diverse learning, drives motivation, creativity and learning outcomes. The authors make a review of the research on the use of blogs in foreign language teaching, discuss their benefits for both teachers and students, and share their experience of using blogs to promote learners' writing skills.

show abstract

“…In language learning and teaching, previous research demonstrated that blogging can promote interaction (Ducate & Lomicka, 2005;Miceli, Murray, & Kennedy, 2010;Trajtemberg & Yiakoumetti, 2011). Also, it can lend support to L2 learning in terms of enabling students to learn autonomously and collaboratively (Amir, Ismail, & Hussin, 2011;Baggetun and Wasson, 2006;Bhattacharya & Chauhan, 2010;Bakar, 2009;Godwin-Jones, 2003;Warlick, 2005), and to be motivated (Amir, et al, 2011;Bakar & Ismail, 2009), as well as to develop learner confidence (Bakar, 2009;Bakar, Latif, & Ya'acob, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of blog-mediated peer feedback on learners’ motivation, collaboration, and course satisfaction in a second language writing course

Zhang

Song

Shen

et al. 2014

AJET

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper reported on a study of using blogs as out-of-class assignments for the development of learners' writing competence. There were 36 students of English majors from an intact second language (L2) writing class participating in this study. A mixed method design was employed to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data. The results showed that blog-based peer feedback had a statistically significant positive correlation with learners' motivation, collaboration, and course satisfaction. The findings also revealed that the feedback was conducive to learners' self-reflection and self-confidence in L2 writing and could give rise to an enhanced L2 writing experience. The study concludes that group collaborative writing via blogging can not only encourage collaboration and self-reflection but also engage learners in noticing and co-construction of knowledge. Pedagogical implications and challenges are addressed and suggestions for future research are advanced. IntroductionThe use of weblogs, more commonly known as blogs, for social communication has been growing in popularity in recent years across the globe. The number of blog users is increasing at an exponential rate each year. Take the case of China. By the end of December 2011, the total number of blog users had climbed to 319 million, an increase of 8.2% for the same time period in 2010 (Tencent IT, 2012). The active users of micro-blogs arrived at 254 million in 2011, an increase of 150.7% over 2010 (NetEase Tech, 2012). Chinese netizens are taking advantage of this novel form of communication to enjoy freedom of speech, to a larger extent, and blogs have become a crucially important avenue for the netizens to express their own views about personal interests, politics, and social issues. The same phenomenal growth of blogging can also be seen elsewhere. For instance, in the United States, an estimated number of blog readers reached 122.6 million in 2011, with a 2.5% increase over the previous year (Reese, 2012). In South Korea, most of the Internet users (89.7%) were social networking service (SNS) users, and more than 70% of these SNS users used blogs in 2011, which accounted for 84.0% of the respondents surveyed (Korea Internet & Security Agency, 2012). Obviously blogging has, at least to some extent, become part of social life for people in the digital era, without the demarcation of physical boundaries, social ideologies, race, and complexion.In the educational sphere blogs have been explored for promoting teaching and learning (Brescia & Miller, 2006;Ellison & Wu, 2008). Kim (2008) found that blogs are advantageous over traditional computer-mediated communication (CMC) applications in terms of their affordances of interactivity, openness, visualization, and decentralization. A vast multitude of other studies (e.g., Churchill, 2009;Glogoff, 2007;Halic, Lee, Paulus & Spence, 2010;Huck, 2007;Kang, Bonk, & Kim, 2011;Yang, 2009;Williams & Jacobs, 2004) have also acknowledged the educational advantages of integrating such a social media tool into the c...

show abstract

Weblogs: a tool for EFL interaction, expression, and self-evaluation

Cited by 39 publications

References 11 publications

Popular Culture, English Out-of-class Activities, and Learner Autonomy among Highly Proficient Secondary Students in Hong Kong

Popular Culture, English Out-of-class Activities, and Learner Autonomy among Highly Proficient Secondary Students in Hong Kong

Blogs as a Means to Enhance Writing Skills in EFL Classes

The effects of blog-mediated peer feedback on learners’ motivation, collaboration, and course satisfaction in a second language writing course

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About