Abstract
Mastery of the rules of a language is often clearly reflected in written outputs. In the Philippines, where English is a second language (L2), students are oftentimes reluctant to perform writing tasks as this will expose their ignorance in the skill. With the ubiquity of social networks in mind, this study sought to find out students’ needs and motivations in writing, with weblogs used as learning journals in a virtual teaching and learning environment. The two independent group design experimental method of research was employed in this research. A standardized writing test from the Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) and TOEFL Writing test were used in gathering the data. Data were treated with statistical tools such as weighted mean, frequency count, standard deviation and t-test. Results reveal that the respondents from the experimental group and the controlled group can comprehend meaningful input but their knowledge of the rules governing sentence construction and the actual writing of the material (application) are the root causes of their difficulty in writing.The experimental group has been found to have improved their writing ability specifically in the knowledge and application dimensions, indicating that weblogs have generally made a huge difference in their performance. Hence, it was recommended that weblogs be used in writing subjects to motivate the students to discover the joy of writing. In addition, further studies should also be done concerning how to best motivate students to explore the full potential of blogs as a learning aid.
Author Information
Shiela Manzanilla, Southern Luzon State University, Philippines
Paper Information
Conference: ACE2013
Stream: Education
This paper is part of the ACE2013 Conference Proceedings (View)
Full Paper
View / Download the full paper in a new tab/window
To cite this article:
Manzanilla S. (2014) Interactive Weblogs: Breaking Barriers in L2 Writing in the Philippines ISSN: 2186-5892 – The Asian Conference on Education 2013 – Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/2186-5892.20130627
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/2186-5892.20130627
Comments
Powered by WP LinkPress