Blogging About Current Global Events in the EFL Writing Classroom: Effects on Skill Improvement, Global Awareness and Attitudes

Abstract

A class blog was created and used as a supplement to in-class EFL writing instruction for freshman students. Topics that focused on current global events such as Ramadan in Islamic countries, the Tsunami in Japan, the Royal wedding, and refugees in Europe were posted by the instructor. The students were required to look for videos, photos or articles related to the assigned event and write a short paragraph (blog post) that describes the photo, summarizes the video and article content, or talk about the event in their own words. They also had to write their reaction to the event, and post comments and feedback on their classmates’ blog posts. The students worked on their blog posts individually, in pairs or small group. Comparisons of the posttest scores of students who blogged about current global events and those who used paper-and-pencil assignments on the same topics showed significant differences in writing improvement in favor of the blog group. In addition, students in the blog group had positive attitudes towards the blogging activity. They enjoyed interacting and collaborating with their classmates and reflecting on their own writing in response to the feedback and comments they received from other blog members. Blogging about current global events proved to be effective in raising students’ global awareness and enhancing their writing skills in EFL.

Creation and Sharing of Lessons Learned by Blogging in the Context of Project-Based Learning

“…It has also been observed, in this same context, that employees prefer consulting and reading LL than writing them [14], which is consistent with our results on satisfaction between both activities. As for the experiences of writing blog posts, students are generally satisfied with the activity [26], [32], [33] consistently with the result obtained. Regarding the number of LL proposals received, in our case it is close to one per student, and considering the LL published, these would be over one lesson per three students.…”

“…The results suggested that a blog serves as a support for explanations and that the justifications and argumentations collected in the blog improved the equivalent classroom explanations as they were available for later reading and reflection. In science teacher education [26], blogs were used to assess self-efficacy with internet tools and understanding of environmental problems, while in the teaching of English as a foreign language [32], blogs were used to work on writing. Both experiments compared the results of students who used a blog to those who carried out an equivalent activity, for example, using pencil and paper.…”

“…Blogging has also been used to enhance the effect of summer vacation on reading and writing [30], where a very positive effect was observed. The literature on blogs seems to indicate that they provide a very interesting option to the teaching and learning process and that students enjoy reading posts written by peers, but perceive writing new posts as an activity that involves some difficulty [26], [29], [32]. Some studies on the use of blogs [33], [15] concluded that students who contributed with more comments obtained better academic results and were more willing to learn from peers and interact with them online.…”

Educated Arabs’ Reading Interests and Preferences Before, During and After the Pandemic

“…Both data sets were subjected to further analysis. The titles were classified according to the Dewey Decimal Classification system 1 To classify the book titles accurately especially those that the author is not familiar with, the author checked the book titles in Google Images to view the cover, looked up the book in some online library websites or publishers, read the synopsis and book classification. Repetitious titles were not counted once but as many times as they had occurred and entered in the same book category as many times as found in the date.…”

Teaching English for Polytechnic Purposes: Guidelines for an Integrated, Communicative Approach

“…A review of the ESP literature conducted in the past decades has revealed a multitude of studies that focus on different aspects of ESP teaching and learning. The first group of studies focused on the different approaches used in designing ESP courses, such as the Language-centered course design; the skills-centered design; the learning-centered approach 1 ; the integrative model (Sifakis, 2003); and the functional-notional approach which emphasizes the communicative purpose of the language, students' special needs, self-motivation, and identification of functions (Kim, 1992). More recent studies recommended outcome-based and student-centered approaches (He, Zhang & Yan, 2021;Hernandez (2016); a standards-based approach (Brown & Prendergast, 2020); the content and language integrated learning approach for developing students' language skills and content knowledge and empowering them with high employability and mobility in a globalized job market (Yang, 2018).…”