Blogging in Second Language Writing: Synthesis of Research

Samah Elbelazi, USA

Samah Elbelazi is a Libyan PhD Candidate in Composition and TESOL in Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She has extensive experience in teaching English as a foreign/second language. She is interested in poetry, creative writing and using technology to teach ESL/EFL writing. Her current interest is using poetic inquiry in a feminist research to facilitate the voice of Libyan women. E. mail: samahlibya@gmail.com

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Abstract
My blog story
What is blogging?
Sociocultural Theory and blogging
Discussion of key findings of collected academic materials
Blogging and L2
The pros of blogs
The cons of blogs
Conclusion
References

Abstract

The teachers’ need for using technology in their classes becomes undeniable and over whelming in this century, therefore, more studies about role of technology in language classroom is taking a place. Currently, many second language-writing teachers are adapting technology as a helping tool to enhance students’ writing. Yet, the past and current research about technology and second language writing reported inconclusive findings about whether technology does improve second language writing or not. Therefore, This paper aims first, to explore my own experience about blogs. Second, bridge the relationship between theory and practice by relating the blogs experience to socio-cultural theory. Third, by synthesizing various studies, I highlight the advantages and disadvantages of blogs in the second language writing class. Finally, the purpose of this paper is an eye opener of the various usages of blogs in ESL writing classes.

My blog story

My name is on the top of the page, with big font. I can see it on Google search. I can refer it to my friends. Under my name is where I listed poems, stories, diaries and pictures. You know where, it is in my blog.

The winter was so cold outside; the snow was nocking my window to drag me there to see the pale street colored with whiteness and fog. I was so bored; my kids were already on bed and my husband was watching the Libyan news about the Libyan uprising in 2011.

I wanted to do something different: I told my husband.
Like what? He said.
I do not know, go and finish your news: I replied.
I sat next to him watching these painful news, I was so upset. I went back to my room and wrote a poem about my country.

My Bleeding Country

Then, as usual I checked my Facebook for updates. I was scrolling the mouse up and down and nothing in my mind.

The snow was still invading my thoughts.

Suddenly, I found an ad about one lady’s blog on Facebook. I do not remember the blog’s name exactly but I still remember that it was about second language education. Being a second language myself I was so interested in the topic. I opened the blog and I was so amazed with how it was decorated and well written. It was not a webpage neither a Facebook page, so what was that? I asked myself.

My attention was drawn from the topic itself to the blog’s design. At that time I did not even know what blog was. I spent fifteen minutes watching the pictures, reading the headlines and jumping from one topic to another. Then out of sudden, I found:

CREATE YOUR OWN BLOG

I clicked it, and then Google asked me to create a Gmail. Without any hesitation I followed all the instruction, which were clearly set and at last, I created my own blog.

I downloaded pictures, used templates and wrote my thoughts. It was unbelievable. I could see my name, my picture and my poems. Yes, everything was online like great authors and famous people.

After that, this little blog became the place where I stored my writing. The place, where I talk to myself when there was no one around.

Simply put, my fruitful experience with blog encouraged me to write this paper about blogs and second language writing in order to find the advantages and disadvantages of it in ESL classroom. As a teacher, I think of everything new in terms of teaching/learning experience. I think of the students and whether this technology would help or not.

Yes, why not? May be the feeling I had would encourage students to write. I felt my writing aspiration arose when I created this blog. I had to visit it twice a day even if I had nothing to add. Similarly, the students might feel the same especially in the case of the second language students who are looking for all alternative ways not only to teach them writing but also looking for motivators that could introduce second language writing as fun, yet challenging requirement.

What is blogging?

Weblogs initiated by the beginning of the Internet during the late 1990s. Blog is a combination of two words web and log. The term weblog was emerged in 1997, but a few months later, in 1998, Peter Merholz used the shorter version, ‘blog,’ by breaking the word weblog into the phrase ‘we blog’”(Armstrong & Retterer, 2008;Henry and Zawilinski, 2011). Blog is an online journal where people can store their data, diaries, stories, research and even pictures and audio files. According to Campbell (2003) “A weblog (or 'blog') can be thought of as an online journal that an individual can continuously update with his or her own words, ideas, and thoughts through software that enables one to easily do so” (Para. 2). Similarly Johnson (2008) defined blogs as “electronic journals that allow the user to keep records of their writing on a website” (para.2). According to blogger by Google website (2012):

“A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there are no real rules.In simple terms, a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what's new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not.Since Blogger was launched in 1999, blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others” (Para.1).

Utilizing blogs is very simple. It does not require expert computer skills. Basic skills can work perfect with little training. When I recall back my experience with blog I remember that I was not good enough with computers skills. However, I could use it without any training or any assistance. I followed the instructions and suddenly I found my blog online.

Sociocultural Theory and blogging

The use of technology has become overwhelming in the twenty first century. People around the world take advantages of various kinds of technologies in different fields. According to the International Telecommunication Union (2009), there are over a quarter of the world’s population are having computers at home. This statistic does not include the number of computers other places and other devices such as mobile phones, and access devices to the Internet overall. Classrooms as one of these places encourage the use of technology as an enriching tool for learning the language. Therefore, the use of blogs as one of the online technologies has been widely studied to find out the advantages and disadvantages of it. One of these advantages is providing the students with electronic online interaction where they can log in and start giving and receiving feedback. From the theoretical point of view Lev Vygotsky claims, “[H]uman behavior results from the integration of socially and culturally constructed forms of mediation into human activity” (Lantolf, 2000, p.8). This claim shows that humans are ingrained within their cultures and societies. As they produce the language they are directly or indirectly influenced by their societies and cultures. Abidin et al (2011) in their study, found out that blogging promoted peer collaboration and enhanced learning through online interaction. Therefore, for the sociocultural theory, learning a language is a social process in which students mainly rely on the social interaction within the given social practice. Foster and Ohta (2005) stated that sociocultural theory “view[s] mind and learning as something inter-mental, embedded in social interaction” (p. 403). In other words, people are part of their environment and they cannot be separated from these environments. In this way, knowledge is not generated by the learners alone, but by the interaction between the learners and the social context (Foster and Ohta, 2005). Besides, students learn the language through their interaction with the social context in their classroom (Elbelazi, 2013). When they interact with their peers, a new social context appears. Therefore, blogging in the digital age offer this experience of interaction in a fun yet, learning environment.

Discussion of key findings of collected academic materials

In the twenty first century, technology has become part of most people’s lives especially in the field of education. It is just a single click which takes students further than textbooks and the classroom environment. It is that click which might change the way literacy can be learned. People now use more text messages and emails than ever before. Pastor (2007) argued that “we are going from paper pages to digital screens” (p.599). In the following section, I provide some of the existing literature about the use of blogs in second language writing classroom.

Writing fluency and collaborative learning

Fellner and Apple (2006) aimed to find whether second language writing fluency has improved by using blog free writing exercises among 21 novice and non-professional students in a short intensive English CALL program. The instructors were looking at seven criteria as: language learning potential, learner fit, meaning focus, authenticity, positive impact, practicality, and enhancement. The finding of the study reported that the students’ writing had developed during the period of the intensive English courses and this result encourageed the use of blogs to improve second language writing even for a short period of time. Similar to Fellner and Apple, Nakatsukasa’s (2009) study investigated second language students’ perception of the use of blogs as a collaborative tool when writing in the second language. A group of sixteen low- intermediate ESL students participate at Midwestern University in the study. The aim of the study was to explore whether the students benefit from collaborative blogging in their writing fluency and what are the students’ perceptions of collaborative blogging? The results of the study report that ESL students’ academic words have increased in the later blogging activity. Also, it is claimed that the students’ focus on grammar needs to be further invistigated.

Peer Feedback in a digital environment

In another study, Abidin, Mohammadi and Abdul hamid (2011) attempted to find out how writing blogs assisted in promoting peer collaboration among students during the writing the process. This study was defined as an ethnographic case study where the researchers described the activities of a specific group of learners (p. 100). The findings of the study revealed that promoting peer collaboration through the writing blogs produces positive results, even though some students level was very low. Therefore, this study also like the previous study where blogging could provide a good environment for collaboration and feedback. This also reflected back on Vygotsky ZPD “ Zone of Proximal Development” which emphasized on the significant role of the environment in learning and cooperation. According to him “students early understanding normally comes from the support of educated adults, teachers or peers through interation. Such support would enable students to make further progress in the zone of proxima development, and which is beyond students’ ability to achieve” (Abidin et al, 2011; p. 104 ).

Blogs as motivators

Like the previous studies Armstrong and Retterer (2008) conducted an emperical study about blogging and writing. This empirical study is seeking to find out:

1. Whether blogging provide an opportunity to help students become more actively engaged in a foreign language over the course of a semester?
2. Would students write more by using blogs than traditional course?
3. Would students feel more confident writing in a foreign language, because they were writing weekly?

To find answer for these questions, sixteen students enrolled in this study. Two of them were a highly advanced computer users while the other fourteen used to use computer skills for typing and word processing. Those students were English students studying Spanish as a foreign language. Where ESOL students had to master not only the computer skills, they needed to understand the computer English in order to engage in the study. Now in this study, the participants were English speakers this mean that they did not have any problems concerning the computer English if I can call.

First, the researchers and the students set their own blog by using free blog service. The pros for using these services were that they provided self-control, flexibility, customization and branding (p.237). Students also could use their own pictures and uploaded whatever items they needed to include in their blog. Second the assignments for the blog were more structured which means that students were asked to write particular topics and these topics were graded. Moreover, the students were asked to learn new vocabulary and grammatical structures from each other’s blogs. There were no minimum length for any of the writing assignments; this might reduce the stress that students could live during the process of writing in a foreign language. During the semester, the researchers were posing questions that help students to construct ideas about the usefulness of online writing. The results of the study claimed that blog helped students to immerse in different kinds of writing with different functions such as persuasion or informational writing. Students were able to use a variety of tenses, moods and vocabulary (p.247).

Blogging and life story

In another research Huffaker (2005) conducted a theoretical study where he explored the connection between story telling and blogging. Similarly to Abidin et al and Armstrog et al, he discovered that blogs provided a motivated and enhancing environment for self-expression and collaborative work. He claimed that students loved talking about their personal experiences and blog gives them this opportunity to write, design back grounds and upload pictures so all their friends can see and read these blogs, therefore, more feedback the students will get.

Blogging and academic writing

Finally and in the same respect, Sun and Chang (2012) conducted an empirical research about the use of blogs in the academic writing class for EFL students. The study took a place in Taiwan. The participants were seven graduate students studying Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Six of them were female and one was male. The aim of the study was to answer three research questions:

1. What kinds of writing –related topics do students blog about?
2. How do students’ collaborative dialogues on blogs help them process and reconstruct knowledge about academic writing?
3. How do students’ collaborative dialogues on blogs facilitate their negotiation of academic identities and construction of authorship?

The students were required to work in two assignments. In the first assignments the students were asked to find five journal articles in TESOL related disciplines and analyzed the moves (introduction, method, result and conclusion) and the language samples used in each journal (p. 46). The second assignment was a blog project. In this project the students had the freedom to select the topics they like as soon as these topics were related to academic writing. The students also have could choose whatever blog service and they could design it the way they like. When the blogs were ready, the students were asked to post thirteen topics and comments on their classmates’ blogs. This assignment was handled weekly. The findings of this research reported, “the study confirms the conduciveness of collaborative interaction on blogs in facilitating learners’ meaning –making process” (p. 58). However, those results did not mean that the students could be academic writers in English. Towards the end, Sun and Chang state that, “Through the lens of collaborative dialogue, blogs can be regarded as learning sites that nurture such collaborative interaction and scaffold learning. Since the conversations on blogs allow not one-way reflection but two-way conversation among blog users, they record the collaborative interaction and scaffolding among multiple writers in co-constructing each blog entry. Thus, by taking blogging’s collaborative nature into consideration, we hope to trace learners’ paths of knowledge processing, construction, and identity negotiation by analyzing the texts, or the dialogues, presented on their blogs.”(P.45).

Teachers’ knowledge and blogs

From a different perspective, Brown and Steve (2011), in a recent study, examined the use of blogging as a tool to reinforce the application of technology in a graduate course of literacy and technology. The participants were two future teachers enrolled in a literacy and technology course. They had both the computer competence and knowledge about the topic they would address, which in this study, was the Holocaust. This topic was chosen because students could have access to different articles, news, and pictures to post on the blog. They could also contribute their own analysis and critical thinking about the Holocaust (Brown and Steve, 2010). Participants were interviewed to check whether the interpretive data were correct or not. Their surveys and blog posts were also analyzed. The study indicated two findings. Firstly, the participants claimed that to integrate blogging in teaching literacy, teachers should be well prepared and have adequate background knowledge about it. Posting on blogs involved responding, commenting and editing of the original text, so teachers should be knowledgeable enough to follow their students’ interaction online. The second finding indicated that both participants pointed out that they would use this technology in their classes in the future because they had a good experience working in a collaborative learning environment. One of the participants stated “she also recognized the rich potential of blogging to provide an interactive space for authentic exchanges among students to encourage students to read, write, and respond around a particular theme or focus. Blogs were a collaborative space in which students share a common language and experience.” (p.39).

To summarize the previous nascent literature, the following section will discuss the results of the former studies.

Blogging and L2

Several studies have explored the influence of blogging in second language writing and most of these studies encourages the use of blogs in second language writing classes

(Fellner and Apple, 2006; Armstrong and Rettere, 2008; Nakatskasa, 2009; Abidin et al, 2011; Sun and Chang, 2012). Fellner and Apple (2006) find out that blogging improve second language writing fluency in a short period of time. Although in Fellner study the students’ level is very low, the students show great progress in their writing through blogs. Armstrong and Rettere (2008) similarly find out that when students use blogs in their writing classroom, they were very much involved and engaged in the process of writing. The researchers also discovered that the students’ use of tense and some grammatical rules had improved by reading and commenting on each other’s blogs. Nakatskasa (2009) study about the students’ perception on blogging and collaborative writing gain positive results. It ended up saying that blogging improves the amount of L2academic vocabulary through collaborative writing. Abidin at al (2011) also reported the same result in regard to the feedback. The researchers conclude that blogs in ESL writing class provide the students with rich environment for enhancing collaborative writing. Finally, Sun and Chang (2012) report that blogging was an effective tool in learning L2 writing, because it facilitated the students’ understanding of the content and it empowereds them by giving and receiving feedback.

From all the previously mentioned studies, it is clear that blogs in L2 reported positive results and it was highly encouraged to be adapted in ESL classroom writing setting. Therefore, the following section will highlight the advantages and disadvantages of blogging in ESL writing class:

The pros of blogs

Blogs are good place for reading and writing. Based on my experience and the data set in the studies, blogs provide a good place for students to read and write informally without any pressure. The materials they are reading are usually the authors’ own experience and this experience might offer the students various vocabulary that they need not only in their writing but also in their daily life in L2. According to Fellner and Apple (2004) blogging gives the students the opportunity to read and write in the second language indirectly.

1. Promote self expression and self-study:
   Students usually like talking about their experiences and their daily life events. Blogs provide them with the cyber space for releasing these experiences and get them published. Huffaker (2005) maintained that blogging resemble personal journals and dairies by providing an online avenue where self- expression and creativity was encouraged (p. 91). Blogs also can be a good environment for students to store data, links to homework, Moodle, D2L and email. Therefore, it will ease the job of the students by putting all their work in one space in a form of e-portfolio.
2. Collaborative work:
   Blogging as it serves the personal needs, it is also a very encouraging place for collaborative work and feedback. In blogs students can easily provide comments for the whole class and they receive a various comments individually (Johnson, 2004; Fellner and Apple, 2006; Nakatsukasa, 2009).
3. Easy to access:
   Online blogs are very easy to access usually everywhere on campus and at home where the Internet connection is available. Furthermore, Blogs are usually free so the students and the teachers are not required to pay to get access (Fellner and Apple, 2006; Abdin et al, 2011; Campbell, 2003).
4. Motivational tool:
   Unlike paper based writing, blogs offer the students a chance to use their creativity and imagination. They can upload pictures, design pages and add their favorite links (Armstrong and Retterer, 2008; Abdin et al, 2011).
5. Great for teachers:
   By using blogs teachers do not need to carry a pile of their students work at home and at work. They need only to access to these blogs and leave their comments there (Fellener and Apple, 2006). Moreover, by getting the online access to the students’ work, teachers can easily copy/paste their students writing to spelling and grammar checker and they can check this work for plagiarism.

The cons of blogs

The previous data set report four drawbacks

1. Time: It is found out that the time factor is an obstacle when students use blogs in classroom. The students’ speed of writing is individual as they are not all writing in the same way. Making the students write in their blogs in the classroom can be a little frustrating and annoying for slow writers.
2. Academic writing: Some studies reported that even though the students’ writing has been improved, their academic and professional writing has not show any development. The researchers think that blogging is good for informal writing and life story experience more than academic writing. (Sun and Chang, 2012; Fellner and Apple; Huffaker, 2005).
3. Grammar: Because most students use blogs for informal writing, it is found that their grammatical mistakes still persist. Nakatsukasa (2009) believes that using blogs for grammar improvement needs further investigation.
4. Knowledge about the topic: In Brown and Steve, 2010 study, it is concluded that even if both teachers and students have a good computer competence. The only drawback in the study was that the teachers themselves were not knowledgeable enough about the topic in the blog. Therefore, instead of helping their students with follow up comments, they were not well prepared to handle the students’ questions about the topic.

Conclusion

The main purpose for this paper is to observe the potential role for using blogs in ESL writing classroom. In doing so, I first stated my own experience of using blogs and how this experience led me to write this paper. Second, I synthesized the existing literature about blogging and second language to find out whether blogging improve second language writing or not. According to the studies, blogs are very good source and tool for enhancing and facilitating second language writing. Finally, the last section explored the advantages and disadvantages of blogs in the second language classroom. To conclude, recalling back my experience with blogs, I believe that blogs are very good source of knowledge, feedback and collaborative work. And being an ESL student myself I think blogging helps me to preserve my identity as a second language learner, it motivates me to write more poems, more stories and add more pictures. These things, of combining pictures and writing were not easy in the past. Now with the aid of technology, blogs make the impossible possible.

References

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Armstrong, K., & Retterer, O. (2008). Blogging as L2 writing: A case study. AACE Journal, 16(3), 233-251.

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Fellner, T. and Apple, M. (2006). Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs. The JALT CALL Journal. 2(1), 15-26.

Foster, P and Ohta, A. (2005). Negotiation for meaning and peer assistance in second language classrooms. Applied Linguistics, 26(3), 402-430.

Huffaker, D. (2005). The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom. AACE Journal, 13(2), 91-98.

Johnson, A. (2004). Creating a writing course utilizing class and student blog. The Internet TESL Journal, 10(8).

Lantolf, J. P. (2000). Introducing sociocultural theory. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural Thoery and Second Language Learning. NY: Oxford University Press.

Nakatsukasa, K. (2009). The efficacy and students’ perceptions of collaborative blogging in an ESL classroom. In C. A. Chapelle, H. G. Jun, & I. Katz (Eds.), Developin and evaluating language learning materials (pp. 69‐84). Ames, IA: Iowa State University.

International Telecommunication Unit. (2009). The world in 2009: ICT facts and figures (Rep.). Retrieved November 26, 2012, from ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database website: www.itu.int/ITU- D/ict/facts/2011/material/ICTFactsFigures2009.pdfatabase.

Pastor, M. C. (2007). The internet as a tool to learn a second language in a technical environment European Journal of Engineering Education, Taylor & Francis, 32(5), 599 - 612.

Sun, Y. and Chang, Y. (2012) Blogging to learn: Becoming EFL academic writers through collaborative dialogues. Language Learning and Technology. 16 (1), 43-61.

Zwilinski, L. H. and L. (2011). No Password is Required. Reading Today, 29(1), 13.

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