Article Review

Voice Blog: An Exploratory Study of Language Learning

Language Learning and Technology, June 2009, Volume 13, Number 2

http://llt.msu.edu/vol13num2/sun.pdf

Yu Chih Sun is an associate professor at the Institute of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. Her research interests include computer-assisted language learning, academic writing, and speech instruction.
(Email: sunyc@mail.NCTU.edu.tw)

Summary of the article:
The aims of this particular research article is to provide a theoretical and a pedagogical foundation for the premise that extensive practice on blogs can constitute an integral part of instruction; and that blogs enable students to structure their thoughts and to make them publicly available in a way that is rarely possible in other media. This study also posted two research questions which were: 1) What are the learners’ learning processes and learning strategies in voice-blog activities? and 2) What emerging themes characterize perceptions of participants’ blogging experiences? This study used two data collection procedures which were: 1) a survey of student attitudes towards the use of voice blogs, and 2) retrospective interviews with students. The subjects/samples used in this study were 46 college students in Taiwan in two oral classes taught by the teacher-researcher. Both classes were relatively large: 24 and 22 students respectively. Of the 46 students, 15 were female and 31 were males. Students’ average age was 20.67 years. One student was a freshman, 14 students were sophomores, 8 students were juniors, 22 students were seniors, and one student was a graduate student. The subjects had been studying English as a foreign language about 9 years, most of them had never studied abroad in an English-speaking country. They were majoring in a variety of technical disciplines, such as electronic, mechanical, information management science, and electrophysics. All of the subjects tended to have relatively little exposure to English in their content-based classes. The finding of this study was all of the 46 subjects have uploaded a total of 1, 239 voice-blog and 646 comments on their classmates’ blog entries. On average, each participant posted 27 voice blogs and 14 comments on the class blog over the course of one semester. The results of this study reveal that students went through a series of blogging stages, including conceptualizing, brainstorming, articulation, monitoring, and evaluating, and used a wide variety of strategies to cope with blogging-related difficulties. In addition, students perceived blogging not only as a means of learning, but also as a means of self-presentation, information exchange, and social networking. Furthermore, the findings suggest that blogs constitute a dynamic forum that fosters extensive practice, learning motivation, authorship, and development of learning strategies.

My reaction:
This research does interest me as it is simple and understandable. Furthermore, this research provides clear information which I can easily comprehend as this research was done in an area which I know best which is language learning. However, I found that voice blog is new information to me as I never heard of it before. The research is well conducted as what I can see from the questions in the questionnaire provided, it helps the researcher to answer the research questions and it is reliable.
The implication(s) of this research in the teaching and learning of ESL is that, this learning technique (voice blog) can be a significant method in teaching and learning process in Malaysian context eventhough it is very rarely used in Malaysia. However, teachers need to have the skill in using or applying voice blog in order to cater all students’ needs. I do personally think that when applying this learning method, teachers would face difficulties as the number of students in Malaysian school context is large compared to other countries. Nevertheless, if this learning method is applied, students’ motivation will be increased and through voice blogging, they can share information and at the same time they can still do social networking with their friends all over the world.
Other than that, I can see that through voice blog, students can learn at their own pace as this method is very much a student-centered approach whereby students can take control of learning content and learning process. When students get the chance to experience the learning process by themselves, they would engage themselves in a meaningful learning and thus from the experiences, they will generate knowledge and understanding. This method (voice blog) is parallel with the theory of constructivism in which it suggests that learners construct knowledge out of their experiences. Furthermore, voice blog can help students who have low level of confidence to improve their learning process as voice blog does not involve any nonverbal cues such as facial expressions and body language. Therefore, through voice blog, it will help students to improve language learning as it provides a safer and more relaxed environment for language learners.