By: Dr. Maria Teodora Ping, M.Sc.Paper Presentation

59th TEFLIN International Conference2012

BackgroundComputer and internet have become one of the

important parts of modern day people’s livesThe undeniable existence of educational

activities or programmes supported by the use of computer technology, including blog (weblog)

The current situation at the English Department Universitas Mulawarman Samarinda, in which students have started experiencing “Computer Assisted Language Learning”

Objectives of the StudyGeneral Objective: having an insight to the students’

ELT blog projects done under the framework of CALL Course

Specific Objectives: 1. Describing and analysing the students’ ELT blogs

by focusing on the two following main aspects:- Organisation & type of blog content- Peer commentary/ feedback2. Finding out how students promoted/ introduced

their blogs to their classmates by using a particular social media platform, namely “twitter”

3. Finding out students’ personal opinions on blogging activities related to their own learning process and interest

Related StudiesPinkman (2005) - action research investigating the benefits of using blogs in

an EFL class. - findings: increasing interest & motivation; improving

reading & writing skillsBlackstone et al (2007)- an implementation of a cycle of blogging activities - findings: blogging motivated students to interact

meaningfully outside the classroomAhluwalia et al (2011) - students’ perception of using blogs as a means to

supplement in-class language learning activities- findings: an overall positive attitude towards using blogs in

their learning of English

Research MethodologyCase Study (Qualitative Approach) investigating

some presumably important aspects of the students’ ELT blog projects

Participants: Students who enrolled at 4 classes of Computer Assisted Language Learning in which the researcher was the lecturer-in-charge

Data were taken from 24 students’ blogAdditional instrument: a simple online survey/

questionnaire created on surveymonkeyData Analysis: Content Analysis; descriptive

Procedures for the StudentsAfter being introduced to blogging activities

as one of the topics discussed in CALL course, forming a small group (consisting of four people) and creating their own blogs that could facilitate English Language Teaching and Learning

Promoting their blogs via twitterCompleting an online survey concerning the

blog project

FindingsStudents’ blog content: organisation & type- Most posts were organised based on the

differentiation of language skills (i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing). Most groups posted in a random order and only a few separated the posts in a separate folder for each language skill

- Type of content included a variety of articles, tips and strategies as well as exercises. All students used different modalities such as texts, pictures, animations and audio-video files.

Example of the student blog posts

Findings cont.Peer Commentary/ Feedback- Not properly used by the peer groups- Mainly complimenting, and a few times

criticising Example:

Findings cont.Incorporating twitter to promote the blogs- Working out rather well. All groups were

observed to tweet at least once to promote their blogs

Example:

Findings cont.Online Survey on Students’ Personal OpinionItem 1:

“Did you experience writing a blog before the CALL Final Project?”Out of 12 student respondents, 8 answered “Yes” and 4 answered “No”

Example of a response:“Yes, I did since 2009 but it had nothing to do with teaching or learning. I made it to share all of my artworks back then.”7/11/2012 10:09 PM

Findings cont.Item 2

“If you experienced having a blog before the CALL Final Project, what language did you use to write your blog posts?”Out of the eight students, three students answered “English”, three students answered both Indonesian and English, one student answered “Indonesian” and the other one answered Indonesian, English and Korean.

Findings cont.Items 3- 10

Notes: AA = Absolutely Agree; A= Agree; D= Disagree; AD = Absolutely Disagree

Item Statement AA A D AD

3“The experience in creating a blog made CALL course interesting” 41.75 % 58.3 % 0% 0%

4“I enjoyed writing and reading blog posts created for CALL Final Project” 25.0 % 75.0 % 0% 0%

5“Blogging Activities for CALL Final Project helped me learn some writing skills” 33.3 % 66.7 % 0% 0%

6“Blogging activities for CALL Project helped me learn some reading skills” 25% 66.7 % 8.3 % 0%

7“Blogging Activities for CALL Project helped me improve my grammar” 33.3 % 25.5 % 41.7 % 0%

8

“Blogging activities for CALL final project helped me develop some knowledge about English language teaching and learning material development” 66.7 % 25.0 % 8.3 % 0%

9“Blogging Activities for CALL final project helped me learn some new words” 25% 50% 25% 0%

10“Blogging Activities motivated me to complete CALL final project” 50.00 % 41.7 % 8.3 % 0%

Conclusions and SuggestionsConclusions:The findings of this study provided an insight

of students’ ELT Blog Content, in terms of type and organisation

The findings of the study also confirmed the findings of previous studies, especially concerning students’ opinions on the usefulness of blogging activities related to their learning improvement and interest

The students did not seem to comment much on their peer’s blog

Conclusions and SuggestionsThe students made use of twitter as a media

to promote their blogs quite well

Suggestions:For researchers: using the findings of this

study as preliminary data to develop larger, more extensive studies

For EFL teachers & students: making more use of online platforms such as blogs and twitter for educational purposes

THANK YOU!