An exploratory study of using blogs and social media in developing writing English

Abstract

This exploratory study investigated the benefits of using blogs and other social media to develop English writing based on the readings of existing literatures in the field. Secondly, the paper looked at the reactions of Bangladeshi English language users and students on developing writing using blogs and other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. The survey responses revealed both positive and negative feedback. A common trend in the responses was that almost everyone preferred online activities to real-life activities for developing their written English. However, one weakness of the survey was that most participants were readers of blogs and there were only a handful of participants who were bloggers. At the beginning, I identified the problem that is encountered by students while using blogs for developing their written English. In the purpose of the study I talked about the intent of the researcher to arrive at a solution to the problem by analysing literature and the responses given by participants using the questionnaire. One of my primary limitations in this study was that due to time constraint I was not able to visit an English language classroom and therefore had to totally depend on online participants. In Chapter 2, I reviewed relevant literature in CALL in order to get understanding of what other researchers in the field have done in this field before. In Chapter 3, I discussed the methodology of the paper and in it I also briefly discussed my theoretical framework; in which I mentioned the key considerations of the study. Finally, I analysed the findings of the study and arrived at a conclusion.