Abstract
Blogs and other Web 2.0 technologies have offered the possibility of interactive communication to students who use English as a foreign language (EFL). The author proposes that we should explore how university students coconstruct a multitude of interactions within and around EFL blogging. Drawing on two interconnected methodologies — sociocultural theory and sociolinguistic studies — this paper analyzes online interactive discourse among small groups of female EFL students in an undergraduate “Online English Learning” course. The analysis suggests that the integration of these interactive, community-based approaches to EFL blogging opens up rich and complex communicative practices in which participants can share second language (L2) knowledge, support each other, and present their virtual selves through creative text construction and semiotic language use. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for L2 learning and future research.
Highlights
This decade has seen blogs becoming popular media for implementing a variety of literacy and communication purposes
I first review community-based literacy and communication practices in sociocultural theory (SCT) and sociolinguistic studies. These background concepts lead to a presentation of multi-level interactions in English as a foreign language (EFL) blogging, which helps inform the design of blogging tasks for student learning in and out of the classroom, and guide discussions on how different communicative outcomes can be achieved via these tasks
Exploitation of L2 disciplinary knowledge. Through both online observation and constant communication with the students in offline contexts, the author found that several sub-disciplines co-exist in the EFL community
Summary
This decade has seen blogs becoming popular media for implementing a variety of literacy and communication purposes. Second language (L2) educators and researchers have used blogs to facilitate university students’ reading and writing skills (Pinkman, 2005), vocabulary learning and writing fluency (Fellner & Apple, 2006), and critical reading and writing strategies (Bloch, 2007; Ducate & Lomicka, 2008; Murray & Hourigan, 2008). This growing body of research has focused more on individuals’ production and interpretation of discourse and text than on their communicative interaction in a broad social and cultural context. The purpose of this study is to explore and assess the most beneficial uses of social media in EFL learning
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