Integrating
Social Networking Tools into ESL Writing Classroom : Strengths and Weakness
With the
rapid development in technology, some people come up with idea to teach ESL via
Social Networking Services (SNSs). To
gather data and opinions, this idea than brought into an online discussion
which the participants are TESL
students in state University in
Malaysia. Based on the articles, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn,
Friendster, RenRen, CY and Orkut are widely used across the world. Thus,
discussion are made to find the possibility of using SNSs and bring it into the
education field. Teachers can use SNSs to get feedback from their students and
students can also discuss some of the problem that they are facing even
after the school time. Through the
written passages, teachers can correct the students’ mistakes, give some
comments and of course give them praise when students come out with creative or
excellent suggestions, phrases and sentences. This will make students feel
their work are appreciated and become more interested in ESL writing. Other
than that, students that are too shy or lack of confidence can write out their
suggestions with more comfort and less
stress. Through teachers’ encouragement and the will to give out better phrases
than the others, students tend to work harder to improve their English level.
Even so, they are some disadvantages too in this teaching and learning method.
Firstly, distractions are the main problem of online learning. Students are
attracted by other sites and causes them to loose concentration, making them to
mixed up what have they learned with the ‘entertainments of the day’. Secondly,
students that are too used to write in short forms may use this informal writing
in the real exam or formal writing without them realizing it. Lastly, automatic
spelling correction in some SNSs will cause students to forget to spell some
words correctly.
From my own
experience, it’s really hard to not getting yourself distracted by so many
things and latest news from the internet. Students may think that they can
control themselves but in the end, they end up rushing their assignments and
passed up homeworks that are completed half-heartedly. Even some will take the
easy way, that is copying other people’s work from the websites, do some
changes and throw some last minutes ideas, making them to feel like they had
done their ‘own work’.
From my
point of view, using SNSs in ESL writing is not a good idea, and it’s not that
realistic at all. The advantages showed above---letting students that are too
shy or lack of confident to shout out their opinions with more comfort and less
stress does not seem right to me, and it does not help the students in building
their character. Yes, it will be less stress but when will the students can
really overcome their social problem and
lack of confident issues? If they continuously using only SNSs to communicate
with other people, self-confidence won’t build up in them, and they might turn
into the opposite way---no confidence to speak out in front of others at all.
Thus, causing them to decrease their social circle, direct interaction with
other human being wouldn’t come out in their list. For me, Instead of letting
students giving out opinions in a small
chatting room, teachers can help and encourage students to jump out of their
comfort zone, let them speak out what they think in front of their friends.
Through this real life learning, students can boost their confidence to a
higher level and become more comfortable
when they are throwing out suggestions in a crowd. After all writing, reading
and speaking are all what human do to let themselves have a better
communications and understanding towards each other.
