#journal summary

Online Communication in Language Learning and Teaching

By Marie-Noëlle Lamy and Regine Hampel

Chapter 1 ‘Historical Background’

Computer-mediated communication language learning  (CMCL) come out in the mid-1990s, when institutions began to providean asynchronous text-based networking opportunities to their students. There has since been a gradual deployment of computer tools for synchronous communication, latterly including voice-based Internet telephony, across the different sectors of language education in developed countries, in distance as well as in co-located settings. The changes in CMCL can be interrelated and others independent of each other.

Unpacking the Value of Writing: Exploring College Students’ Perceptions of Writing

By Sharon Zumbrunn, Yvette M. Carter, and Sarah Conklin

Expectancy-value theory (EVT), a well-established perspective on student motivation suggests that the value students place on academic tasks often predicts engagement in such activities. It is necessary that instructors should consider students’ perceptions of the characteristics that contribute to valuable writing tasks, because there is the power of the student value beliefs in determining learning achievement. With a better understanding of student writing value, instructors may be better equipped to convey the importance of academic writing, and better capable of guiding the academic writing tasks.

Students and the Teacher’s Perceptions on Incorporating the Blog Task and Peer Feedback into EFL Writing Classes Through Blogs

By Hsin-Yi Cyndi Huan

Blogs have been investigated in several studies as a motivating and effective tool  for developing writing skills in the target language because it provides  an authentic environment to communicate with each other through writing. Blogs not only facilitate the exchange of ideas and self-reflection, but also enable students to provide feedback on their peers’ work, which create a more relaxed, student-centered, and self-paced reading and writing target language environment.

In this feedback, students can exchange ideas, negotiate for meaning, and respond questions. Regardless of the benefits of peer feedback, many EFL writing teachers do not use it because they believe peer feedback is time-consuming and ineffective. This is because

pre-training consumes a great deal amount of time and

teachers need to take time to persuade students about the value of peer feedback.

Critical Thinking in Gifted Children’s Offline and Online Peer Feedback

By Myriah T. Miller & Jill Olthouse 

The purpose of the study is to compare and contrast use of critical thinking in two situations: while giving peer feedback using a structured paper guide and while giving peer feedback using online social commenting. The media for online data is Storybird and Kidblog as while the peer rubric critiques for the fiction stories were categorized as offline data.

Peer Feedback Practice in EFL Tertiary Writing Classes

By Ha Thi Nguyen

In 1979,  Flavell defined metacognition as the human ability to reflect on one’s knowledge and control one’s knowledge and thinking. Researchers have tried to simplify this notion as “understanding and control of cognitive processes” or “thinking about thinking”. An awareness of metacognition in language teaching and learning generally and in English writing skills particularly will contribute significantly to students’ language acquisition. An appropriate peer feedback approach in EFL writing classes will stimulate the learners’ metacognitive awareness and skills.

Creative Writing Assignments in a Second Language Course: A Way to Engage Less Motivated Students

By Ekaterina Arshavskaya

Many students who speak English as second language show low levels of engagement with class activities and assignments during class meetings. Solving this problem the writer proposes expressive and creative forms of writing which is focused on minimize fear, nervousness, and self-consciousness, and employ students’ critical pedagogy. The researchers set the number of sentences and words, and determined some topics in each student’s writing at the beginning and the end of the course, and some questionnaires at the end.

In order to employ critical pedagogy, this activity focuses on ideas rather than grammar, spelling or structural deficiencies, thus, students become more critical towards societal inequality and more empathetic towards the groups of people discussed in the assignments.

From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language Teaching

by ZHUANG Xin

Journal Writing with Peer Feedback:  A Friend or A Foe for EFL Learners

By Thanyapa Chiramanee and Watcharee Kulprasit

In Asian academic setting, writing is usually taught by traditional approaches, including grammar translation, audiolingual, and teacher-centred approach. Students being taught under such approaches, are not able to communicate their ideas in a written form in the target language because it just orientated in the test scores. Thus, decreases students’ motivation and enthusiasm to write and learn how to write in the target language.