Тищенко Микола Андрійович

Національний технічний університет України «КПІ», Україна

Methods of using blogs for foreign language learning classroom

The proliferation of the information and communication technology has provided university educators with the technological tools that can be implemented as pedagogical instruments in the classrooms. Language educators have employed various resources to equip their students with the knowledge and skills that can make them more autonomous and independent in their learning. It is believed that learners can get the most out of the learning environment if they can take responsibility for their own learning both inside and outside the classrooms. The current advancements in the information and communication technology have thus provided the learners with various tools in the form of computer-based resources to help them take charge of their own learning. Nowadays blogs have become progressively popular as an authentic and constructive learning tool especially in the language classrooms [5, 172-173]. This learning approach, also known as on-line journal or web diary, is an Internet-based resource which was initially used by blog writers as personal journals or diaries. Currently, however, blogs are being used to express and share thoughts, ideas and information with the wider public. Blogs are user-friendly websites which are easy to maintain and frequently updated by their owners. As a social networking and medium for communication, blogs enabled the users to interact not only with the computer, but also with other bloggers. Lately, blog is gradually being used as a pedagogical tool in the classrooms and it is deemed to assume a more communicative role than the less interactive applications [4, 98-102]. Through its newly-found status as an educational tool, blogging allows the students to reflect on their perceptions of the learning materials and on their own learning process [5, 182-183]. Blogs help students explore and assimilate new ideas, create links between the familiar and unfamiliar and explain things to the self before explaining them to others. Different studies have attested to the valuable role played by blogs in enhancing students’ language learning skills. In a study on the use of blogging as a platform for english as a second language learning [3, 61-62], the findings indicated that various levels of learning activities took place as a result of the use of blogs whereby the students were encouraged to communicate and interact with their peers using different language patterns. The use of blogs in language classroom has also been found to be valuable in promoting collaborative knowledge-building activities among students. As an on-line journal, blog allows the students to participate actively in their own learning, determine their learning goals and share their knowledge in order to develop their own understanding of the target learning activities. On the part of the students, it can be concluded from the findings that blogging has promoted interactive discussion among students and simplified their collective understanding of the target learning activities. On the part of the teachers, responding to the students’ warm-up blogs activities can assist them to regulate the content of the lessons and thus effectively guide the classroom activities. Though there are already existing studies and reviews on the use of blogs as an educational tool [2; 6], further studies still need to be done especially with respect to the use of blogs in the second or foreign language learning classroom. This is because as a computer-based resource, the use of blogs as a teaching and learning tool is relatively new and it has only of late been gaining popularity. Furthermore, studies on the use of blogs in the second or foreign language classrooms are still lacking especially the ones which involved English as a second language low proficiency learners. The use of blog in the classroom can be said to embrace the philosophy of social constructivism whereby the learners acquire new knowledge of the subject matter through discussions, and further expand this newly-acquired knowledge by applying it in different situations. These processes allow the learners to become active participants in developing their own understanding of important concepts and achieve their learning goals.

The integration of the blogs in the English as a second language classrooms provides the opportunity for the students to take charge of their own learning in collaborative manner, sets their own learning goals, develops new knowledge, improves their language skills, builds self-confidence and provides fresh dimension to life in the classrooms. The use of blogs as classroom application provides avenue for the students to be more independent and autonomous in their learning - a skill which they can apply beyond the classroom. When students are able to engage with the target language more frequently and autonomously, it will give them extra opportunities to acquire the language on their own. Although the implementation of blogs as classroom application would increase the teachers’ administrative load associated with the nature of the task [1, 217-219], the benefits to be gained are worthy of the time and effort that have to be spent to integrate this technology in the learning environment.

Література:

1. Hourigan T., «Using blogs to help language students to develop reflective learning strategies», Australian journal of educational technology, 26(2), 2010

2. Nadzrah A.B., Kemboja I., «Using blogs to encourage ESL students», Australian journal of educational technology, 21(2), 2009

3. Nadzrah A.B., «Blogging as a platform for language learning», European journal of social sciences, 9(4), 2009

4. Pinkman K., «Using Blogs in the Foreign Language Classroom», Australian journal of educational technology, 9(3), 2006

5. Seitzinger J., «Blogs, podcast, and wikis as constructivist learning tools», Learning Solutions, 2006

6. Yih-Rueh J., «Learning by Blogging», The JALT CALL Journal, 18(1), 2008