TASK 2: Article Review

Title - Using Blogs in the Foreign Language Classroom: Encouraging Learner Independence

Journal - The JALT CALL Journal, 2005, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 12-24

Author - Kathleen Pinkman,
English Language Instructor,
Kwansei Gakuin University,
Japan.

Source - http://www.jaltcall.org/journal/articles/1_1_Pinkman.pdf

The aims of the research – The project was an out-of-class project to motivate the students to practice language skills and communicate with others authentically. In this research, blogs are used as a medium to improve their language and communication skills. Thus, the aimed of this research was to determine the usefulness of incorporating blogs in the foreign language classroom as well as to assist foreign language professionals in developing learner independence by using blogs. It was also to provide students with forum in order to present critical thinking and express opinion by conveying their thoughts, reflecting on lesson learnt in class and to question one another.

The methodology – The project was initiated as a small scale action project. There were only 15 students involved in the project. The project was divided into two parts; Pre-Project and Post-Project. For the pre-project, the students were given questionnaires to be completed concerning their attitudes towards technology and blogs prior to implementing the project. The responses from this questionnaire were used to organize the project which took place for 16 weeks. The students were asked to write blog entries based on lesson learnt in class and they are asked to communicate with other classmates. At the end of the semester, for Post-Project, the students were asked to volunteer to be interviewed by the instructor to discuss the project.

The subject/sample – There were only 15 students involved in the project. It was implemented in a Pre-Advanced English class at Kwansei Gakuin University (KGU) in Japan. The students were all the holder of TOEFL score of 475 and they were from the departments of Humanities, So­ciology, Economics, Business, and Law, and were studying in their second, third, and fourth years (of four-year programs) at KGU.

The findings of the research – All of the learners interviewed responded that they were really enjoyed the project. Most of them learnt a lot through blogging. They benefited interacting with others as well as with the instructors. They comments given did motivate them in improving their skills. Some of them were also claimed that they improved in their writing skills. Some of them even intended to continue blogging after the project. However, there were a few disadvantages commented by some of them which they said it was quite time consuming to write the entries as they had quite difficult time to come out with sentences.

Reaction – The research is capturing my interest as I personally think that it is close to my heart as nowadays, for me blogging has become a part of many people’s life including the young people as well. I personally think that the research was well conducted. The researcher did have a good plan in conducting the project where she divided the project into two stages. This helped in determined the prospect result of this research. Other than that, the sample were also taught on how to blog before they actually get involved in blogging. However, I believe if there are more respondents, the research will have better and reliable results. I also agree that there should be more research to determine the effectiveness of using blog in improving the language. And, it will be great if there is a follow up session with the students who decided to continue blogging after the project ended. This can investigate their learning development and improvement.

As for Malaysian context, I believe that it is a good method to improve students’ language by using blog. It is because the numbers of blogs is increasing and the range of topics they touch on seems to have become infinite. MALAYSIA has about 500,000 active bloggers, ranking the country among the highest in the world after Indonesia and the European Union (The Star, 2008). Hence, I personally think that it is good to expose them to blog as it is not something unusual to do as most of Malaysian students are familiar with daily journal writing. What makes it different just the use of technology. By having blog, students are able to express their thoughts and feeling to be published. It is also a good way for language teachers to develop students’ interest as they are largely writing based, with a great capability to support images, audio and video. By doing so, they are able to interact and comment with one another not only between schoolmates but worldwide. They are also able to learn from others as they read others’ blogs. As time goes by, as the students learn independently, their awareness will develop and their skills will be improved.

For me, teaching and learning process will be more interesting when we incorporate technology. It will have bigger and greater impact rather than chalk and talk as we are in the age of technology span rapidly every second. All in all, by manipulating blog, it will not only make the learning process interesting for the students but it will provide easy access for the teacher to monitor the students’ progress.