Christopher Storey
Dept. of Information and Media Sciences, University of Kitakyushu, Japan

Promoting Communication through Student Blogs
Facilitating communication outside the classroom is desirable, yet challenging, for teachers with homogeneous groups of students who have limited opportunities to practice English within their environment. However, meaningful communication based on the content of student-made blogs is achievable. This presentation reports the results of research into how blogging can be used as tool to promote communication, inside and outside the classroom, and also shows how speaking can be incorporated into blogging processes. As such, this study aims to contribute to knowledge about the use of blogs as a means of computer mediated communication (CMC). Previous research supports the need for this investigation, with one researcher, Pinkman (2005), concluding that “more research needs to be done to determine how to most effectively manipulate blogs in, and out, of the classroom” (p. 22). In this study, the hypothesis that blogging is a way to increase motivation and promote communication inside and outside the classroom was tested with 91 Japanese university science students taking weekly English communication classes. Using freely available software, participants worked in pairs, or small groups, to create blogs based on topics of personal interest utilizing the idea that a picture speaks 1,000 words.

Subjects alternated between adding content and using the blog comment function to send messages to fellow participants. The results supported the hypothesis, and of the 91 students who took part, 76% reported, through questionnaires, that communicative blogging was enjoyable, while 79% thought that it had helped to develop their English skills. In addition, of those who used their blogs to make show-and-tell presentations, 79% reported this to be a worthwhile experience. Guidelines on how to add communicative blogging to any course will be provided, along with a discussion of how this research fits into the wider body of knowledge on computer mediated communication.

References
Pinkman, K. (2005). Using blogs in the foreign language classroom: Encouraging learner independence. The JALT CALL Journal, 1(1), 12-24.

Presenter
Christopher Storey teaches English Communication in the Faculty of Environmental Engineering at The University of Kitakyushu, Japan. His research interests include blended learning, business English and reading. Please get in touch if you have any comments or questions.