The study explored the expressiveness in two types of writing modes: the pen-
paper and the blog entries. It also studied the students’ attitude towards implementing these tools. This paper was conducted through a mixed method approach. Eleven participants of the age range 15-16, were from one of the groups in the Experimental English Courses at the American University of Armenia. Data collection was from the students’ reflective writings and two interviews. The reflective writings were analysed quantitatively through Excel program to find the percentages and create the visuals. The qualitative data from both semi-structured interviews was analysed descriptively. The study concludes that blog helped students express themselves more freely than in writing in terms of the three criteria of expression chosen for this study.
TABLE OF CONTENT
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF FIGURES
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1. The Purpose of the Study
1.2. Research Questions
1.3. The Structure of the Thesis
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Writing
2.1.1. What is writing?
2.1.2. Types of Writing
2.1.3. Expressiveness in Writing
2.1.4. Pedagogical Perspective and the Benefits of Expressive Writing
2.1.5. Challenges of Writing.
2.2. Blogging
2.2.1. What is Blog?
2.2.2. Who and why should they blog?
2.2.3. Features of Blogging
2.2.4. Blogging as a teaching tool in education.
2.3. Blog in ESL/EFL
2.3.1. Benefits
2.3.2. Challenges of blogging:
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.1. Research question Restatement:
3.2. Setting:
3.3. Participants:
3.4. Instruments
3.5. The Research Design
3.6. The Treatment
3.7. Data Collection
3.8. Data Analysis Procedure:
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS
4.1. Analysis of the findings of the first research question
4.2 Analysis of the results of the second research question
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
5.1. Discussion of the Results
5.2. Limitations and Delimitations of the Study
5.2.1. Limitations:
5.2.2. Delimitations:
5.3. Pedagogical Implications:
5.4. Recommendations for further research:
5.5. Conclusion
REFERENCES
APPENDIX A Homework Prompts
APPENDIX B
APPENDIX C
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 The use of Personal references in Blog and Pen-paper writings in percent per number of words.
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Shows the sequence of the assignments and the topics for each week.
Figure 2. The percentage of number of pictures used per student in Blog and Pen-paper for eight-week assignments.
Figure 3. The use of expressive punctuation per student in Blog and Pen-paper for eight- week assignments.
Figure 4. The use of personal references per student in Blog and Pen-paper for eight-week assignments.
Figure 5. The use of personal references in Blog and pen-paper writings.
ABSTRACT
The study explored the expressiveness in two types of writing modes: the pen- paper and the blog entries. It also studied the students' attitude towards implementing these tools. This paper was conducted through a mixed method approach. Eleven participants of the age range 15-16, were from one of the groups in the Experimental English Courses at the American University of Armenia. Data collection was from the students' reflective writings and two interviews. The reflective writings were analyzed quantitatively through Excel program to find the percentages and create the visuals. The qualitative data from both semi-structured interviews was analyzed descriptively. The study concludes that blog helped students express themselves more freely than in writing in terms of the three criteria of expression chosen for this study.
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
There are many methods and tools for teaching writing. In today's world of technology there is a growing aspiration among students and educators in using technological resources for learning and teaching purposes. One of these technological tools that is widely used in institutions and classrooms is blogging. A blog is a website where information is typically updated in a chronological order by an individual. There is a wide range of blogs for different purposes. Although the history of this new genre of writing has started since 1990, only recently it became popular in the field of education, and has a substantial impact on a traditional way of teaching. Today, blogs are turned into new educational tools serving as a platform for new ways of teaching by presenting examples of good collaborative work (Winer, 2002).
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief description of results of the pedagogical research project: Comparison of EFL learners' writing experiences, using blogs vs. traditional tools: pen and paper in non-structured reflective writing assignments, in Armenia.
Firstly, this research points out the impact and effectiveness of blogging in improving students' writing performance in terms of self-expression and articulation, and the attitude towards non-structured writing in English based on the general observation of its features and its implementation in education. It further describes students' attitudes using traditional writing method with pen and paper and its influence on their non- structured writing performance. This thesis also discusses how to engage students' reflective learning in English writing through the blog.
1.1. The Purpose of the Study
Not many researches have been conducted with similar intention to find some differences between blogging and pen-paper writing tools in terms of self-expression. One of the recent qualitative studies shows that tools do not determine the quality of writing, and improvement in the students' writing performance, students' performance does not depend on the Internet, however it states that the use of technology, the Internet may motivate the EFL learners to be more engaged in learning process, since it is different from traditional ways of teaching writing (Kashani, Mahmud, Kalajahi, 2013).
My goal is to see to what extent the Armenian students are engaged in the writing process using different tools and to see the differences in the outcomes. If there is any difference in students' self-expression using blog vs. traditional method, pen-paper as writing tools.
1.2. Research Questions
The objectives of this study:
Is there any difference in students' expressiveness when it is communicated in pen-paper writing and blogs?
What are the students' attitudes and opinions towards the pen-paper writing and blogging?
1.3. The Structure of the Thesis
This thesis comprises five chapters:
Chapterl: The Introduction
Chapter 2: The Literature Review discusses theoretical literature about Writing and the blog as a median to boost students' expressiveness.
Chapter 3: Methodology describes the way this research was conducted, i.e. setting, instruments, procedure and the data collection
Chapter 4: The Results provides the data analysis and the answers to the research questions.
Chapter 5: The Discussion and Conclusion provides the summary of the results, the pedagogical implications of the study, the limitations and delimitations, recommendations for further research and conclusion.
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
Current literature review intends to discuss different viewpoints about blogging as an educational tool in ESL/ EFL. Furthermore, it will illustrate different arguments about advantages and disadvantages of using it as a tool in education, as well as talk about writing and its challenges. Based on the literature review blog is assumed to be a tool that can help EFL learners to enhance their vocabulary and writing.
This is a research conducted through a mixed method approach, with a goal to compare students' attitude in writing using traditional tools: pen and paper and blogging. There is an intention to compare students' writings using two types of writing modes: blogging vs. pen-paper. Despite the current valuable study contributions in the field of writing, there haven't been much research conducted that measure the differences in students' expressiveness in their writing performance between using blog and pen-paper. It would be also interesting to observe and see the attitude and preference of using those tools in Armenia.
2.1. Writing
2.1.1. What is writing?
Writing is another way of communication. Despite the fact that physical act of writing can promote more complex consideration and focus on their task, develop the syntactic complexity in the language which is usually a norm to measure the student's language proficiency, however, it still does not motivate students enough to stay on task and be engaged at all times. " Writing is much more than production of symbols, just as speech is much more than the production of sounds. The symbols have to be arranged, according to certain conventions, to form words, and words have to be arranged to form sentences" (Byrne, 1988, p. 1). But can this still be considered as writing, if we are writing just lists of words? Writing is when we produce sentences related to each other with their meaning (Byrne, 1988, p. 1). It is a productive skill that requires a lot of practice; therefore it is one of the most challenging components of the language acquisition (Armstrong 2010). It is thinking, creating and composing process. There have been significant amount of studies focusing on different developmental process in writing. For example, composing and revising strategies. Other studies were focused on "cognitive load and language proficiency" (Reid, 1993).
2.1.2. Types of Writing
Different kinds of writing tasks focus on different kinds of information. For example, analytical writing requires a complex concentration, note taking develops comprehension, it sharpens the concentration thereby intelligence. Students develop certain skills depending on the given writing task. Teachers are recommended to consider the expected results and consequences before choosing tasks for writing (Langer and Applebee 1987).
2.1.3. Expressiveness in Writing
Expressive writing is all about expressing ones own thoughts, opinions, and feelings, related to the personal experience. Many studies have shown that humans' expressiveness is directly linked to their psychological state of mind, emotions. Expressive writing creates an opportunity to put their thinking on the paper and connect their learning to their own experiences and concerns (Bean, 2011).
Expressive writing comes in different forms: journals diaries, personal websites, blogs, etc. There have been studies highlighting the benefits of expressive writing in health area. Studies have reported that putting down feelings and emotions onto the paper lowers the stress level, helps rediscovering oneself and figuring out the confusing situations. This is one of the important, useful and commonly used tool in the psychology to help patient to come out of the trauma, tragic event they have been. Psychologists often mention its therapeutic benefits of expressive writing.
The main characteristics of expressive writings are the use of first person pronouns, feelings, emotions, personal experiences, values, etc. The characteristics that are considered to be minor for expressive writings are the use of slang, figurative language ("Expressive Purpose"n.d. ).
2.1.4. Pedagogical Perspective and the Benefits of Expressive Writing
From pedagogical perspective, expressive writing improves the writing skills, boosts the students' confidence, performance level, and fully engaged them in the learning process.
Teachers' role is to help students discover themselves and constructively build on the existing knowledge; expressive writing is the best way to integrate new knowledge constructively and in an authentic way (Fulwiler, 1987).
There are different linguistic indicators through which the expressiveness can be measured. In many studies researching this area observed the linguistic indicators of expressive writings. The use of first person "I" is noticed in many reflective writings where the authors express their own thoughts, feelings and a personal experiences. It is important to teach children skills on organizing their thoughts coherently on the paper. Studies also highlight the importance of bringing out the individuality in person.
According to the study results of Rude, Vane and Whitney (2002), Students who used the first person pronoun references "I" and not for "me" or "my", found to be more depressed.
2.1.5. Challenges of Writing.
Byrne (1988) explains the difficulties of writing bringing three main reasons. First reason is the psychological problems. Unlike speaking, where we communicate with someone who is physically present and communication is happening in context with feedback of some kind, writing requires to create the context on our own, it is purely and activity with no interaction or feedback. Second reason that makes writing difficult is related to linguistic problems. As it was mentioned above writing involves no physical interaction with anybody, which in its turn may hinder the reader's comprehension of the writing is it is not done clearly, and well structured. In speaking however, physical presence and the alive context help the normal interaction. Unlike writing speech is more spontaneous and there is a limited time to organize sentences correctly.
Third challenge is related to cognitive problems. The first thing we do without making much effort is learning how to speak, and we do it without giving much thought to it. Writing however is learned through the instruction. It is taught and needs efforts to learn structures, organize our thoughts so clearly that can be understood by the reader (Byrne, 1988).
2.2. Blogging
2.2.1. What is Blog?
A blog is a website where information is typically updated in a chronological order by an individual on a regular basis content of which can be texts, photos, videos, etc. (Cameron, &Anderson, 2006). As opposed to emailing blogging has wider audience who has an option to comment on the content written in the blog. "Blogs have emerged from early mail lists and instant messaging communities as a means of informing a dedicated reader base about items of interest to the authors, news, and personal information" (Williams, 2004).
"One can think of a blog as a web based, multimedia publishing system, that is very low cost (often free), very easy to use, customizable, in terms of look and feel, content, target audience and hyperlinked to other content spread across the Internet" (Cameron, Anderson, 2001). There is a wide range of blogs for different purposes.
Blog content diverse. It covers from single theme entries to multiple genres, such as "classic logs", "life logs", etc. (Ford 2000). Although the history of this new genre of writing have started since 1990, only recently it became popular in the field of education, and have a substantial impact on a traditional way of teaching (Bialik, 2005).
2.2.2. Who and why should they blog?
Blogging started its skyrocketing increase in gaining popularity between 2002 and 2005. Bloggers share everything within their interests, their opinions. It represents an individual's identity that publishes his/her life (Weil, 2006). Recent studies show however, some interesting results about blogging. Based on those findings, technology researchers stress the importance of blogging and explain the reasons why it is recommended to have a blog regardless the status of being an individual, business owner, or an organization. For example statistical findings show that active bloggers in business have more chances to be competitive and have more loyal customers (Kaplan, 2011).
With the recent increase use of technological tools and interest towards blogging researches have been done also in the field of education to see the effects and impact of blogging in teaching. Richardson (2010) explains the advantages of blogging and recommends its integration in education for teaching purposes. According to him blogging is really an effective tool to enhance students' writing skills critical thinking and promotes improvement in students' overall language performance.
Blogging is perceived to be a helpful digital tool because it can create a platform for online communication; it is free, accessible software with no installation requirements and with easy steps to create an account. Blogs' flexibility in terms of time and editing features are very useful for students (Murrey & Hourigan, 2008). It is true that anyone can blog. According to Richardson, students can benefit immensely from blogging because they can read, analyze synthesize, comment on their peers blogs thus increasing the language proficiency and confidence in communication which in their turn will be only motivating. As it is stated in Murrey's research Blogging can be individual or collaborative in nature, however even in an individual blogging case students can have a sense of collaboration, knowing there is some audience who can read their posts (Murrey & Hourigan, 2008). There are many other built in features in blogs, such as customizing, designing editing, spell checking, etc that makes blogging more attractive place to be and interact. Kaplan (2012) gives a clear answer to the question as to why there are so many teenagers using blogs nowadays. As he stated, teens can write creatively; document their daily lives, express their thoughts, share ideas, dreams, interests such as books, movies, etc. In many cases blogging helped teens to become famous (Kaplan, 2011).
2.2.3. Features of Blogging
Blog offers a feature that allows expressing ones thoughts and establishing the online identity, their voice.
Modern user friendly writing tool at no cost (Murrey and Hourigan, 2008)
Instant publishing
Sharing, commenting, providing feedback
A place for discussions
Easy customizing
Searchable
Subscription, RSS Feeds and other useful gadgets
2.2.4. Blogging as a teaching tool in education.
Today, in technology driven world, blog has become very popular not only among regular users but also media, writers, journalists, and educators. It has turned into new educational tools serving as a platform for new ways of teaching by presenting examples of good collaborative work (Murrey et al., 2007). Blogging is considered to be effective teaching tool because it allows educators to be via connected with their students, comment and interact. It also gives an option for interaction between peers. Students may receive feedback both from teachers and peers.
As opposed to a traditional way of writing using pencil and paper tools, blogging has several other advantages. It allows students to revisit their work and edit, pay attention to their spelling as the spell checker indicates with a red line if there is a spelling mistake. Finally students have a more creative approach to their work and are more engaged (Carpenter & Slater, 2000). Many veteran educators face the challenge in trying to incorporate technology in their classrooms. Studies indicate that teaching through blogging can.
The technical specifications such as, drafting, revisiting the work, editing, spell check and grammatical check makes blogging a more flexible user-friendly tool (Carpenter & Slater, 2000; Murrey, et al. 2007). According to Scoble, there are five elements that makes blogs "hot": "ease of 77 publishing", "discoverability", "cross-site conversations", "perm linking" such as URL, and "syndication"- replication of content elsewhere (Lovink, 2008 p. 4).
There are many reasons that make blogging-appealing tool for educational purposes. According to Richardson (2010) blogs have had a great impact on every aspect of our life, such as politics, business, personal passions, etc. He believes that web can make a distinctive transformation in our beliefs about teaching and learning. It makes educators rethink the teaching principles and think of ways to prepare our students for their post education lives. Richardson strongly believes that incorporating technological tools such as blogging, wikis, etc. has an influence on the class performance (2010). There have been studies findings of which shows the significant changes in students' performances. The study findings of Ward (2004) showed the students the positive attitude and motivation towards blog as a place to self-express and share thoughts, showed big positive changes in students' and reading writing skills. Fageeh (2011) states it is a tool to give students freedom to self-express in a target language maintaining authenticity.
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