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.