The Impact of Blogging on Students' Motivation for Writing

By Fathia Jellad

The present study investigates the effect of blogging on students' motivation for writing. It examines the benefits of using class blogs as supplementary materials for writing classes. However, it does not deal with the quality of writings since the main focus is on motivation. The data have been collected through an attitudinal questionnaire as well as interviews that were administered to third and fourth grade students after they wrote in blogs. The findings of this study show that students have positive attitudes towards blogging. Blogs proved to have many benefits for students. Blogs were especially helpful for boosting students' motivation for 6 writing and sharing their attitudes with varied audiences. The results also revealed some challenges to be considered for future research on blogs and blogging. The main challenge is related to access to the internet at school and students' familiarity with technology. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fathia Jellad
• Release date: Mar 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215092828

Fathia Jellad

Fathia Jellad is a Tunisian PhD researcher enrolled at the University of Sousse. She specializes in Cultural Studies. Dr Jellad holds an MA degree in American foreign policy and a license in English Literature, Civilization and Linguistics. She has been working as an English teacher for the Ministry of Education since 2015. She has participated in numerous international conferences in Tunisia and abroad.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Acknowledgements

I AM DEEPLY GRATEFUL for the help of my supervisor Mr. Ahmed Mekki Elatrach. I would like to thank him for his guidance and critical remarks. I also give my utmost thanks to the many people who showed interest in the subject matter of this thesis and provided me with valuable comments and ideas. Finally, it is a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of my husband and family who encouraged me to carry on my work and to give it my best effort.

Abstract

The present study investigates the effect of blogging on students’ motivation for writing. It examines the benefits of using class blogs as supplementary materials for writing classes. However, it does not deal with the quality of writings since the main focus is on motivation. The study has been conducted with thirty intermediate students at the Secondary School of Sidi Zid Essouassi, Mahdia in the two semesters of the academic year 2016- 2017.

The data have been collected through an attitudinal questionnaire as well as interviews that were administered to third and fourth grade students after they wrote in blogs. The findings of this study show that students have positive attitudes towards blogging. Blogs proved to have many benefits for students. Blogs were especially helpful for boosting students’ motivation for writing and sharing their attitudes with varied audiences. The results also revealed some challenges to be considered for future research on blogs and blogging. The main challenge is related to access to the internet at school and students’ familiarity with technology.

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter provides the background to the study, problem statement, purpose of the thesis, research question, hypothesis, and structure of the thesis.

1.1 Background and problem statement

Students, regardless of their level, need to understand that composition is an effective tool to express individual attitudes towards a myriad of real-life subjects. Possessing the writing skill enables students to effectively communicate and share their ideas. Although the approaches to the teaching of writing have been developed from product to process, post-process, and genre approaches, the majority of students find writing according to academic norms challenging and daunting. Hence, there is a need to think about creative and interesting assignments that can improve students’ writing abilities.

English language teaching in Tunisia has gone through several phases, and technology has been an indispensable aid to support and motivate students. In fact, previous research has shown that technology is becoming more and more prevalent in language learning.  This tool is used to support teachers when following any teaching method or approach. For example, when implementing the grammar translation method teachers can use the projector, which is an ideal tool to transmit knowledge, especially grammatical input, from the teacher to the student. Besides, when it comes to the audio-lingual method, audio tapes and labs assist in doing repetitive audio practices. Also, with the communicative approach technology can be integrated through weblogs to provide authenticity as well as meaningful interaction. Educational technologies such as blogs can be used in myriad pedagogical approaches to make students an active part of the learning process, especially in writing which unfortunately has become a lost art. As this thesis will show,

Reviews for The Impact of Blogging on Students' Motivation for Writing

[jellad fathia · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dear educators, read the study and implement it. I assure you that you will never regret it.