Collaboration through Blogging: The Development of Writing and Speaking Skills in ESP Courses

Abstract

here has been a growing interest in incorporating social media in education and in language teaching in general. From a pedagogical perspective, as mentioned in Kleanthous (2016), blogs (or weblogs) appear to be effective in enhancing writing and/or reading skills, as their interactive platforms enable learners to exchange comments and offer feedback to each other, thus allowing learners to reflect on their own work and the learning process. Following our previous research (Kleanthous, 2016), this study proposes a research agenda for the effectiveness of collaboration through peer feedback in order to enhance the writing and speaking skills of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) students in online settings. A preliminary analysis of data collected suggests that the interactive use of blogs in the ESP classroom has a positive impact on students' writing and speaking skills. The discussion of our results highlights the importance of social media in promoting language learning within a collaborative environment that is essentially learner-centered and teacher facilitated, as recommended by Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) researchers (e.g. Chapelle, 2001). [For the complete volume of short papers, see ED572005.]