Blogging for Doing English Digital: Student evaluations

Abstract

The emergence of social software tools in recent years, such as blogs and Wikis, has provided new opportunities in supporting an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) digital literacy pedagogy. This study explored the student evaluation of blogging for Doing English Digital, a project-based course at Peking University that aims to develop students’ English digital literacy skills. Findings from the focus group interview suggest that from the student perspective, blogging has the potential to help construct individual identities with a variety of semiotic resources and to provide the social, affective, and metacognitive support essential to the development of digital literacy skills. However, the value of blogging for knowledge co-construction is limited. To maximize the value of blogging for the development of EFL digital literacy skills in the Web 2.0 era, EFL instructors need to integrate blogs with other social networking technologies and design meaningful activities that not only encourage peer interaction within the class community, but also support learners in developing social networking skills to connect to a valuable public beyond the class.