Developing Blogs: New dimension in language teacher education Supyan Hussin, Norizan Abd Razak, Dalia S. Qasim Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
School of Language and Linguistics, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan of Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia
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[email protected] Abstract: Blog or weblog is now getting popular among language teachers in Malaysia. Earlier, a blog is used to record and share personal accounts, opinions, and beliefs, but now is seen useful for language teaching and learning (LTL) if it is used creatively. Like Geocities.com site that is used to offer free space for web hosting in the past, Wordpress.com, Blogger.com and a few others are now offering public to create their own contents. Hence, language teachers could take the opportunity to exploit this tool in the cyberspace to facilitate their LTL. Studies on blogs in LTL are very few not only in Malaysia but also in Southeast Asia. This paper describes an action research on the development of blogs for LTL among post-graduate students, who are pre-service teachers and in-service teachers, at a local university in Malaysia. Findings from students‟ responses to a survey and a set of open-ended questions on their personal experience in the development of blogs will also be presented. The implications of the study will be discussed in relation to teacher training, materials design, and e-learning practice. Paper presented Teaching and Learning of English in Asia (TLEiA Three) from November 18 to 20 November 2009, at the Orchid Garden Hotel, Brunei Darussalam. 1. INTRODUCTION Current trends in education indicate that ICT (information and communication technology) components have been incorporated into language teaching and learning (LTL) world wide. For example, in language teacher training program in Malaysia, students have to take at least one basic computing course, whereas teachers have to integrate the use of ICT in their teaching as required by their institutes or universities. The use of MS PowerPoint program to prepare notes for class lectures is now very common among lecturers at tertiary level. Next, the use of e-mail is a must for students and teachers in educational institutions. E-mail is used for class communication, exchange of data and files, and announcements. Also, the use of worldwide web learning materials among language teachers in their classes is increasing as more materials are available in the Internet. In fact, some language teachers have their own websites that offer customized learning packages for their own students. Additionally, forum or online discussion is now becoming popular among language teachers as forum allows for more focussed discussions that can take place more frequently among students and between students and teachers outside the four walls of their regular classrooms (Supyan Hussin 2008). The use of blog is still new in LTL in Malaysia. At the initial stage of Web 2.0 development, blog is known for personal journal or personal diary or personal expression. However, as more user-friendly features are introduced into the blog, language teachers can now design and exploit their own blog to teach and communicate with their students. They can also prepare and place their own self-directed and interactive learning materials in their blog, trigger some questions related to the course for students to discuss, encourage their students to write/publish opinions and critics, and share students‟ contributions such as poetry, short stories, photos, video clips and audio clips. Jones (2006) indicates that since blog became a convenient and popular form of communication, it is well received by academia. A number of educators used blogs as a central website for their courses instead of other commonly known Learning Management Systems such as WebCT and Blackboard (Jacobs and Williams 2004). According to Kennedy (2004), blogs allow a customized content management system (CMS) for the classroom including projects, pages for news, calendar, syllabi, and more. Different types of blogs were developed for group and individual use, from free to paid, from online to download programs, from simple to complex (Blood 2002; Hawkins 2002; Winer 2003). Creating a blog in the Internet is like writing a book. Unlike the book, the blog can contain texts, graphics, photos, animations, audio clips and video clips that make language learning materials more interesting and more meaningful to students. Students may read the text, hear how words and
sentences are pronounced and read correctly in the target language, watch videos that show gestures, postures, facial expressions, eye contacts, intonation patterns of the speech, and cultural elements, which illustrate and emphasize meanings in the messages. As a result, the language learning process becomes more meaningful and more productive as it is enriched and enhanced by these rich inputs. In order to create a good educational and informative blog, a person must possess a corpus of knowledge of the subject (in this case, English language studies), have basic computing skills, have access to the computer and Internet, posses basic understanding of instructional design principles, and know how to use a blog design tool (such as Wordpress). The creativity of the blog output depends on individual‟s ability and experience. This paper describes an action research on the development of blogs for LTL among post-graduate students, who are pre-service teachers and in-service teachers, at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The study aims to find out (1) How apprehensive were they in presenting their writing in the blog? and (2) What are the respondents‟ reactions and experiences in the process of designing the blog? The discussion of findings will be based on students‟ responses to a survey that used two instruments: WAT questionnaire, a forum-blog questionnaire, and an open-ended questionnaire on their personal experience in the development of blogs. 2. PAST STUDIES The term “blog”, coined by Peter Merholz in 1999. However the term “blog” is derived from the term "weblog", which was first introduced by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. Subsequently, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product (Blogger.com), leading to the popularization of the terms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyra_Labs). Blogs, online personal journals that are frequently updated, have existed in the cyberspace community since 1998. Then in August of 1999, the release of Blogger, a free blog hosting service, fostered the rapid growth of blog sites (Blood, 2000). According to Webopedia, an online encyclopaedia dedicated to computer technology, blog is defined as “Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.” Huffaker (2005) lists some important features of weblog as (a) instant publishing of text or graphics to Web (b) comments or feedback for each blog posts (d) archived feature for archiving past blog posts by date in reverse chronology (d) hyperlinks to other bloggers. However, today, a blog is used for other purposes such as teaching, marketing, services, discussion and entertainment. We can find many blogs either at Blogger.com or Wordpress.com offer some teaching-learning materials, showcase business products, present information on various services, and share entertaining materials. Specifically, we can visit many blogs that are designed for LTL such as http://languagelearningcentre.wordpress.com, http://angeleshernandez.wordpress.com/, and http://globallanguages.wordpress.com/. Wilkins (2001) listed several educational uses of weblogs which include links for students, online exercises, class websites or complete courses of distance learning. In other words a weblog can function as a website, a communication tool and as an online classroom. There have been several studies that indicate the helpfulness and usefulness of blogs in EFL (English as a foreign language) or ESL (English as a second language) classrooms. For examples, studies by Wilkins (2001), Ferdig and Trammel (2004), Jacobs and Williams (2004), Ward (2004), Campbell (2003a), Weiler (2003), Jones (2006), Huffaker (2005), Izham Shah (2008) reveals that blog assists the ESL/EFL instructors to incorporate new, authentic, and reliable pedagogical techniques in their teaching in e-learning environment. In particular, Weiler (2003) states that “there is no doubt that „blog‟ has a great potential for educational use, both on their own and as an extension of the traditional classroom.” He listed the functions for using weblogs in the classroom as follows: as a personal journal, bulletin boards, and electronic portfolios of written work. Blogs provide authentic writing practice (Brooks, Nichols & Priebe, 2004), an opportunity to recycle language learned in class (Pinkman, 2005), and an alternative way of communicating with teachers and peers. Blogs help students to develop audience awareness (Palfreyman, 2005; Ward, 2004), to
create a collaborative class environment (Barrios, 2003; Huffaker, 2004). Blogs have also been reported to be motivating in learning activity (Brooks, Nichols and Priebe, 2004; Pinkman, 2005; Ward, 2004). Ferdig and Trammell (2004) contend that blogs are useful teaching and learning tools because they provide a space for students to reflect and publish their thoughts and understandings. Studies on blog in Malaysia are very rare. Izham Shah (2008) studied the use of blog among 25 preservice teachers who enrolled in an undergraduate TESL (Teaching of English as second language) program at Universiti Teknologi MARA. He concluded that blogs provide a platform for students to participate equally in the learning process, and new topics can emerge outside of the classroom especially when the time constraint of the classroom limits the scope and participations in discussions. Still there are a few ongoing studies on blog in ESL classrooms but no report on the findings have been published..
3. A RECENT STUDY This study involved 35 postgraduate students, who were enrolled in a course, SKBI6133 Computer Applications in ESOL, offered in M.A. (English Language Studies) program Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The course runs for 14 weeks, i.e., July – Nov 2009. In addition, to class forum participation and a term paper, the students were required to develop a blog that offers tutorials or lessons, which might include texts and multimedia components, and interactive exercises. Between Week 1 till Week 6, students were introduced to several topics including CALL (computer-assisted language learning), e-learning, CMC (computer-mediated communication), language pedagogy in online environment, instructional design principles and web evaluation criteria. In Week 5, they were introduced to Blogger.com, and trained for 4 hours on how to design a blog using Blogger.com for a warm-up activity. They were asked to prepare a personal blog which contains information about themselves, opinions on selected topics discussed in the class, and their own favourite leisure topics like hobbies and popular trends. In addition to their personal blog, students were informed that they would prepare an academic/educational blog using Wordpress tool from Wordpress.com. In Week 7, they submitted a storyboard, comprising contents on what they planned to include in their academic blog, for the instructors‟ comments and approval. During the same week, they were introduced to Wordpress blog tool. In week 9, Hot Potatoes, an authoring system, was presented to the students. They would use Hot Potatoes to design a self-directed learning package, consisting of interactive exercises, to be placed in their blog. Between Week 8 and Week 14, they were busily engaged in developing their own blog. A WAT (Writing Apprehension Test), developed by Daly and Miller (1975), was distributed at the beginning and the end of the course. This WAT was used to investigate their level of writing apprehension with regards to their own writing in their blog. The second instrument, which focuses on the forum and blog activities, was administered at the end of the course. Finally, another instrument, an open-ended survey was conducted after the course was over to trigger responses on post-design stage activity. 4. DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS (A) Background of the Respondents All respondents are pursuing their M.A. in English Language Studies at Univertsiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. 13 respondents are male and 22 female. 31 of them are in the first year of their academic program while 4 are in the second year. Their nationalities are varied: 10 Malaysians, 23 Arabs (Libya, Yemen and Iraq) and 2 Iranians. 14 respondents are in-service teachers and 21 are preservice teachers. In terms of accessibility to computer and the Internet, all respondents own a computer and have a full access to the Internet as shown in Table 1. Thus, they were able to participate in the forum, communicate with instructors and friends, and work on their blogs continuously.
Table 1: Access to Computer and the Internet
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
I own a computer at home I have an internet line at home I access the internet at home I access the internet at my work place I access the internet at cybercafé I access the internet at friends‟ places
Yes 35 35 35
% 100 100 100
7
No
%
35 28 35
100 100
As for the Internet activities, they seemed to be highly engaged in such activities as e-mail, blogging, information gathering, and forum as illustrated in Table 2. These data are in line with the time they spent on each activity as shown in Table 3. Table 2: Reasons for using Internet 7. Email online forum blogging look for information Specific data gathering/specific research General data gathering Entertainment Try out some language exercises News Look for services Shopping Curiosity/No particular purpose Chatting
Yes 35 30 35 34 35 33 26 30 22 10
% 100
No _ 5
%
100 1 100 2 9 5 13 25 35 35
100 100
35
Majority of respondents are heavy users of computers and the Internet. Table 3 indicates that 22 respondents spent 6 to 9 hours per day on computing and 20 respondents spent 20 to 30 hours per week on the Internet. The time spent among them on forum is the least i.e., 0-2 hours (25 out of 35 respondents). However, only 11 respondents spent more than 3 hours per week on blogging. Table 3: Frequency of Access
1. In general, I use computers Number of respondents 2. In general, I use the internet facilities (including www, e-mail, news, chat etc.) Number of respondents 3. Specifically, I access online forum….. Number of respondents 4. Specifically, I do blogging activities ….. Number of respondents
0-3 hours/day 3 0-10 hours/week
3-6 hours/day 12 10-20 hours/week
6-9 hours/day 9 20-30 hours/week
More than 9 hours/day 13 More than 30 hours/week
10 0-1 hours/ week 15 0-1 hours/ week
5 1-2 hours/ week 10 1-2 hours/ week
11 2-3 hours/ week 4 2-3 hours/ week
9 More than 3 hours/ week 6 More than 3 hours/ week
7
10
7
11
Although all respondents have access to computers and the Internet and they spent hours on computing, it did not indicate the level of their computing skills. Based on personal observation in the course, almost all non-Malaysian respondents had little experience with MS Office and Internet facilities, including e-mail service, forum, blog, and search engine. Therefore when they were asked to participate in the class forum and design a blog, they were worried at the beginning of the course. The next section will discuss the findings based on responses from a set of questionnaire that uses a Likert scale and a set of open-ended questions looking at three periods: pre-design stage, design stage, and post-design stage. (B) Research Findings As mentioned above, this study looks for answers to Research Question (1) How apprehensive were they were in presenting their writing in the blog? The results indicate that 91percents of respondents were categorized as highly apprehensive and 9 percents were at average as shown in Table 4. However, at the end of 14-Week, their scores on writing apprehension level had changed drastically, i.e, no respondents scored in the highly apprehensive category; 63 percents scored average; 37 percents experienced least apprehension. The raw scores of each respondent for pre-WAT and post-WAT, depict an impressive change in their scores on writing apprehension level in relation to blog design and development. Figure 1 illustrates the difference between pre-WAT and post-WAT scores of each individual. Table 4: Pre-scores and Post-Scores on WAT Scale Dally & Miller (1975) 26-56 Highly apprehensive 60-96 Average apprehensive 97-130 Least apprehensive
Pre WAT 32 (91.43%)
Post WAT 0
3 (8.57%)
22 (62.85%)
0
13 (37.15%)
120
100
80 Student
60
Pre WAT Post WAT
40
20
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435 Figure1: Individual respondent‟s pre-Wat and Post-WAT scores How did it happen? What contributed to the change in scores on their level of writing apprehension in relation to their blog design and development? In order to understand further on this phenomenon, we
will look at the Research question (2) What are the respondents‟ reactions and experiences in the process of designing the blog? There are 4 questions that ask for their responses for “at the beginning of the course”; 5 questions for “during 14-week course”; 4 questions for “at the end of the course” and 5 questions for “post-course” However, for the purpose of the discussion here, only one question from each stage was selected to reflect their responses. 13 respondents had submitted their responses, but only first 5 are selected as samples for illustrations in this paper. i. At the beginning of the course Q2. What was your initial reaction at the beginning of the semester when you were informed that you need to create a blog and an interactive learning package in this course?
R1: At the time that I was confused and afraid of this task, also I was enthusiastic for creating my blog to learn and explore what blog is and what I will use it for. R2: My reaction for creating a blog I was afraid because I was just know how to print and using e-mail and also how to access to the Internet. But this feeling quickly disappears when you gave us the steps to create a blog. R3: At the beginning, I felt shock … But I am also glad that I can learn new technology and knowledge that I never learn before like Wordpress. Beside, I also can empower my knowledge I have like discussion in forum and create blogs. R4: I confused at the beginning of semester when I heard from my teachers about creating a blog, since creating a blog is something new for me. R5: At the first time I think that I will face many problems to make my blog. But your skilful strategies make it very easy. I am very happy to make blog and I ask my family to see it in Jordan. It is new learning for me and it leaves very good impact in myself confidence. When I return to my country, I will tell my partners in English major that I studied this useful course. I think they surely will ask me that this course for another department but I will tell them that we studied it to use it in our teaching processes in everywhere.
Respondents seemed to have mixed reactions when they were informed they had to carry out a few assignments especially to design and develop an educational blog that contains English lessons and interactive exercises. Yet they were willing to learn and to complete the task, and they were excited to engage in blog design and development. ii. During the 14-week course Q6.How do you describe your feeling during the design/development stage of your blogs? Frustrated? Depressed? Worried? Happy? Afraid? Confident? Eager? Enthusiastic? Excited?
R1 I was eager and enthusiastic to carry out this task. R2: I was very happy to design my blog and sometimes when I add a beautiful picture or an interesting video I feel enthusiastic in that time. R3:My feeling during developing my blogs is mix with various like excited, worried, eager, confident and a lot more. I can’t say what exactly I felt but briefly, I happy and proud that I can learn something new from this course. Sometimes I am also afraid that I can’t meet my lecturers’ expectation. R4: I was eager to design educational blog especially when I thought that the blog will be very useful for my students. R5: Really I was very happy, as what I said in the previous questions because I learn a new thing in computer and internet
Most respondents were very happy with what they had done and went through, and admitted they had gained “know-how” knowledge and skills. They know how to compose content, classify information, organize the items, link the texts, and insert multimedia elements in the blog. The anxiety feeling that they experienced at the beginning of the course have faded away as they moved from one stage to
another during the design stage. The step-by-step instruction and support given to the respondents helped to ease their worry about the blog assignment. This could also explain why their writing apprehension level changed from highly apprehensive to low apprehensive as they approached the end of the semester. Currently, their educational blogs, using Wordpress tools, as well as personal blogs, using Blogger tools, are listed at http://www.maele.net/blogs.htm and are accessible to public. iii. At the end of the course Q12. After the course, what would you do with the blogs that you have created? Does anyone of your friends or former students or colleagues or family members know about your blogs? How do you describe their reactions after you informed them about your blogs?
R1: I will try to involve them to benefit from them in my job (English language teaching). Some of my friends saw my blogs and they told me that it is very great and interesting; some of them ask me to show them how to create one and the other said I hope I have one like these. R2: I think they will be very happy and they will try to open blogs for themselves especially after I show them how to create blog. R3: I will still continue using this blogs by posting some new information that will be beneficial for the readers. If I just ignore, it will be wasted. Some of my friends are aware of the blogs that I created since the very beginning I am starting develop it especially my housemates and my close friends. There are some of my friends who are very interested to learn from me on create the blog using the Wordpress after looking at my Wordpress blog. I also recommend to them to try using this facilities to fulfil their free time or as their hobby. R4: I'll develop it and update it continuously to make it a source to my students. My friends, students and family have been surprised when they saw my blog, they say great! And asked how did you do this, please teach us. R5: Yes, I want to develop it and make it more attractive. I told my wife and family to see it and they were very happy when they saw it.
At the end of the course, respondents were very satisfied with what they had achieved in their blog design assignment. By this time, they are not afraid if their writings in the blog and contents are being evaluated by other people. They shared their blogs with their friends and family members, and received positive comments about their blogs. A few expressed that they would refine and update their blogs for future use. Responses in the following table show how positive they are with the blog design. Table 5: Responses on blog design and development 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
I was so excited to develop my own blog when I joined this course I like to write/participate in blog. I have no fear to write in blog. I feel good when I participate in blog. I am not afraid if my writings in the blogs are being evaluated. Regular writing in the blog reduces my anxiety toward writing. I feel free and comfortable when I write my thoughts and ideas in the blog.
Disagree 5 4 4 8 5 6 3
Agree 30 31 31 27 30 29 32
iv. Post-course Q14. Do you think teachers should learn how to exploit the blog for their teaching in the future? All respondents agree that the blog can be exploited by teachers to enhance the teaching of language. It can be created immediately and made available in the Internet for public access at the same time. To all respondents, creating a blog is a new experience, and teaching language using the blog is very new, and yet they are able to see the potentials of the blog in teaching.
R1: In this point I strongly agree with you. I think that all teachers should learn how to exploit the blog in their educational career R2: Yes, of course, because it will be a new way of teaching to avoid the traditional ways which seem boring for students. R3: Yes. That’s absolute an excellent idea. By using the blog on their teaching, it makes their lesson more interactive and fun. I think most of the students nowadays ICT literate and prefer learn using the technology not only just paper and pen R4: Surely. R5:Yes, of course, because it will be a new way of teaching to avoid the traditional ways which seem boring to students.
5. IMPLICATIONS The findings suggest that teacher education program should expose pre-service and in-service teachers to contemporary technological tools. Knowing how to create a blog or a forum is not sufficient for teachers. In fact, the blog or the forum is only a tool to facilitate teaching. Teachers should also know how to apply pedagogical principles in the teaching delivery using the blog or forum to ensure effective instruction takes place. Thus, teachers should be introduced to instructional design principles, including language pedagogy, so that teachers know to apply these principles in their materials development and their teaching delivery. In addition, the “know-how” skills that teachers have acquired and learned while attending their MA program would help them to create more LTL materials and update those materials rapidly in the future. Programming self-directed and interactive lessons using certain tools has become easier today. Teachers do not have to memorize scripts and commands but use icons and objects to design the interface and layout of the lessons. Teachers, who are the expert in their field, can now develop more lessons and make the lessons available in the Internet. Hosting the lessons in the Internet is not that difficult now as certain spaces are available for free in Blogger.com, Wordpress.com, and google.com sites. Language learners would appreciate the teachers‟ effort to provide e-learning materials in the Internet and to open up more communication channels through e-mail, forum, chat, and the blog so that the learning does not stop after the class hour is over on that day.
6. CONCLUSION Having discussed the findings in this research, we can conclude that in-service and pre-service teachers in teacher education program would not have many problems to make use of ICT in their language classes if they are trained to use appropriate tools and practical pedagogy. Apparently, they might face a few problems, especially some technical aspects, at the beginning of the course; thus they might be apprehensive to compose the lessons in the blog. Their writing apprehension will level change from high to low as they become familiar with the ‟know how‟ skills. Perhaps a good support system like forum, peer interaction, and consultancy with the experts would help to ease their apprehension. Language competence or confidence or attitudes, which might affect influence their apprehension level, are not the major determiners. As the present generation are familiar with pushbutton technology, some of the ICT tools like the blog and the forum, besides e-mail, could be integrated into language courses. The language learning will become more productive and more meaningful when such multiple sensory channels in the multimedia interactive learning packages are used. Hence, language teachers should take the opportunity to exploit the blog in their language courses. 7. REFERENCES Barrios, B. (2003). The year of the blog: Weblogs in the writing classroom. (Online) http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/barrios/blogs/index.html (Retrieved on 17 Oct 2009) Blood, R. (2000). Weblogs: A history and perspective. (Online) http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html (Retrieved on 25 Sept 2009) Brooks, K., Nichols, C., & Priebe, S. (2004). Remediation, Genre, and Motivation: Key Concepts for Teaching with Weblogs.
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