Effects of weblogging in English on ESL students’ writing apprehension at Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sabah
Suzie Wong @ Suzie Rahman1.
The affordances of technological advances such as the Internet have
changed the way writing is taught and learnt. It undeniably impacts
the cognitive and affective states in writing which include one’s writing
apprehension. Students, who are still in the process of acquiring English
as a second language (ESL), commonly experience writing apprehension
when writing in English. Thus, this study aims to describe the effects of
using the weblog as a medium for essay writing in relation to writing
apprehension among ESL students undergoing an Intermediate English
course at Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sabah. The quantitative research
approach employing the Quasi-experimental design was used in this study.
One hundred fi fty-fi ve diploma students participated in the experiment with
79 and 76 participants in each of the respective Experimental group and
Control group. Writing through blogging was used with the Experimental
group, while writing through non-blogging pen-paper method was used
with the Control group. Both groups were pre-tested and post-tested with an
adapted Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) questionnaire.
The writing apprehension levels among the ESL students were found to be
average. Writing through blogging was found to have insignifi cant effects
on the ESL students’ writing apprehension when compared to the writing
through non-blogging pen-paper method. This implies that writing through
blogging does not necessarily promote reduced writing apprehension and
it may be as anxiety-inducing as the pen-paper writing method for the ESL
students in the present study.
Affiliation:
- Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia
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