Weblog: An Effective Media for the Students to Learn English in Globalization Era

Nurma Fitriani

English Education Study Program

Ahmad Dahlan University

ABSTRACT

Entering the globalization era, we are introduced to internet which can connect us to many things offered there, including weblog. Weblog is one of the effects of globalization that provide many tools appropriate to the people’s needs for making some writing on it. This paper simply shows us the effectiveness of weblog for the students to make them easy in learning English. Here, the students can use weblog as a media to share the things they want to learn about English. Started from the easiest level of writing, students can write a diary of their experiences about English learning in their daily life. This way can make students easy to convey their problems or their abilities about learning English. This media is a correct choice in this modern life, considering to the way it can be working, to train them in the using of the language when they write on it. From connecting to internet, it means that the students can explore everything they want to know that might help them for their writing.

With the existence of weblog that becomes more mushrooming everyday in the globalization era, students are expected to use it in order to make them aware about the technology development around them and not to look behind. With the using of English as the second language of some countries in ASEAN, students can make themselves motivated to improve their English again and again. Basically, writing and reading are still emphasized here. When the students learn to write English, they also learn to read it in a good way. When the students have good abilities in both skills, they will be more eager to practice speaking in English with their friends. One thing that the students need to be aware is that surfing in the internet is not always safe. It’s better if they can still concern about the important or the secret things of their life.

Keywords:

Weblog, English, Writing Skill, Globalization Era

INTRODUCTION

A few years ago, it is difficult to find internet connection in our society, especially in Indonesia, but today we can connected easily, because people have a lot of knowledge about the development of technology around them. One of the marks is proven by so many people are not awkward anymore to use mobile phone; even the users are could be from students of elementary school who shouldn’t be allowed to use it yet. That’s a real example we often meet in this globalization era. Globalization defines our era. It is “what happen when the movements of people, goods, or ideas, among countries and regions accelerates” (Suarez-Orozco and Qin-Hilliard, 2004: 1) Here, the using of mobile phone that spread to many people in whole the world becomes the easiest process to be accepted by them.

If we look from the definition of globalization above, we will see that it has more effects than just the using of mobile phone which comes from economic sector. There are still the effects from societies and cultures sectors that give many influences for people. The appearance of the effects usually doesn’t too seen by people. But for along with the entry progress of it, the effects will affect people in many cases.

The entry of the global effects in some countries is impossible to be happened without the existence of language in it. People have already known that the language used in this globalization process is English. English itself is a global language which used by most citizens in the world and became the first or the second language for some nations, even in some countries of ASEAN. Nevertheless, English has been learned in some development countries whose languages also start to be learned by people instead of learning English, such as Japan and China with their Japanese and Mandarin.

For some countries which consider English as a foreign language, people there are trying to learn English in order to make up for lost time with others. The Medias used to learn English are different too.

Weblog are integrated into assessment as ends in themselves (in creative writing or composition courses, particularly), as formative assessment exercises, or as a meant to develop critical engagement and reflection on the courses material. (Jean Burgess, 2007: 105).

From Jean’s explanation above, we can use weblog as one way to learn how to write especially for students who learn English. Here, the teachers don’t need to be worried anymore because weblog can help them to give a new way to avoid boredom in learning English for the students. The students can encourage their thoughts and creativity through weblog. Weblog or blog is one of the internet services that can facilitate people to write something freely. In this networked world, it is really easy to look for hotspot areas or warnet (warung internet-place for browsing and connecting to the internet using computers available there) around them.

English as a Global Language

For some countries, English has been being the second language, so that it’s not surprised anymore if people there have a good ability in speaking English. But, some of them might don’t have good pronunciation to speak every word in English. For the people in the same nation, it’s not a big deal, but for the country which has it own accent and the country which uses British and American English as a reference for their learning, listening to the other accent will be strange to catch in the ears, although it might be easier to catch for the people in the country which consider English as a foreign language. Crystal (2003: 2) states that,

These are the kinds of statements which seem so obvious that most people would give them hardly a second thought. Of course English is a global language, they would say. You hear it on television spoken by politicians from all over the world, wherever you travel, you see English signs and advertisements. Whenever you enter hotels or restaurants in a foreign city, they will understand English and there will be English menu. Indeed, if there is anything to wonder about at all, they might add, it is why such headlines should still be newsworthy.

It’s clearly significant that we are not expected to forget our mother tongue or first language. Learning English at school or other informal education doesn’t mean that we are not interested anymore in Bahasa, for Indonesian, but it’s just the beginning to be able to communicate with foreigners. Sooner or later, we will face to the global world influenced most by English speaking country, so willing or not willing, we have to learn about their language too if we don’t want to be buried because of cannot speak in English.

Bringing up the first language is not always going to be by speaking Bahasa all the time and refusing to speak in other language, but it can be held with some efforts such as, using Bahasa in a good way, not for mocking people or not to make it changed from original form of Bahasa itself.

When we can speak in English well, then it’s really possible for us to communicate with foreigners properly. When we have a good conversation already, we can introduce Bahasa to them little by little. Surely, it’s forbidden for us to force them to know Bahasa. They themselves will have willingness and encouragement to learn Bahasa when they are interested in some unique and different things in every corner of Indonesia that they never meet before in their nation.

The more we like a country, the more encouraging we are to learn about the language used in that country. So, learning language cannot be separated from culture of a country, because actually language is one of the cultures a country has. This is the teacher should do first before he/she is going to teach English to their students, he/she must makes the students grow to love United Kingdom or United States, if he/she want their students use English used by both nation. Surely, the teacher has to tell the students the greatness of the country among its weakness.

Weblog as an Effective Media

Many technology we have met now, new gadgets popped out, and also so many effects appeared influence people in a whole the world, so did internet. Who doesn’t know internet right now? Many people talk about it, they use it, and they need it because internet offers a lot of information and knowledge about everything they want to know. Once you want to look information about something in internet, you just need to type the keyword according to your search, and then internet will give you much information about it.

Although it is not guaranteed that all of the information on the internet are can be trusted enough, that’s because the information on internet are can be from everybody, not only from researchers, educators, scientist, and so on. It is true that everyone can write everything in internet because internet has many features inside that can be mediators for people to write on it.

The activities on internet are simple enough. It’s about upload and downloads. But what can be upload and download are be able to be materials for learning, especially for the students. Beside, the language used on internet is mostly English, so it’s really appropriate to the students who want to learn about English. Mark Warschauer, Heidi Shetzer, and Christine Meloni (2002: 7) said that there are fine main reasons to use internet for English teaching and learning. They are authenticity, literacy, interaction, vitality, and empowerment which can bring English teaching and learning comes ALIVE. The students are possible to have some writing meaningful on internet, moreover internet is can be organized in 24 hours non-stop. All they need to do is having the computer and a telephone line or modem, and then they can be able to write, read, communicate, research, and publish everything on it. When they want to communicate with native or nonnative speakers, they just need to make a chat with them because the users of internet are from the people around the world. It means that internet is also fulfilling with many languages in whole the world, beside the students can learn about other languages, they can also introduce their nation or mother language by writing using those language. When the students have already known how to manage their writing on internet well, they can be a good programmer of multimedia future.

Learning using internet gives the teacher much facilitation he/she couldn’t get in the common way. It is new for them and makes them easy to get more resources than just they get in the books. In the old way, learning in the class was a teacher-centered. It means that the students always point to what the teacher said to them. Here, the students consider that “the teacher is always right”. In fact, when they have other references and resources, they can develop their thought about something progressive than their teacher. Butler-Pascoe and Wiburd (2003) have differentiate between the old and the new models of learning in the table 1 below.

Table 1

Old versus New Models of Learning

Old	New
· People learn by listening, memorizing, and giving back information. · Learning is individual and competitive. · The teacher is the sole source of information. · Education is assign and assess.	· People learn by constructing knowledge from many sources. · Learning occurs in social and cultural contexts. · There are multiple sources of information. · Education is learning.

One of the Medias which can facilitate students to write is weblog, or commonly people know it as blog. The activity on weblog is writing mostly. Nowadays, we can find many blog sites in internet. Even some of them have already earned money. It cannot be denied that online business have been mushrooming now. By writing something wanted by the other people, your blog will be visited by them.

Everything in this world must have the good side and also the bad side. But, people have different thought about this too. When someone thinks that something gives positive effects more than the negative one, we can say that there is also another one who thinks contrary outside. It is just same as the effects of weblog. For some people who work and earn money from writing in blog, it makes a sense that blog gives them more good effects, but for people who don’t know at all about blog, they might just think that it is wasting time.

How to Create a Blog Site

Making blog is not as difficult as people think before. It is quite simple. People just need to follow every step shown by the blog available on the internet. One requirement that the people need to have is they must have an e-mail address. One e-mail is enough for them to make one blog address. In addition, Dudeney and Hockly (2007: 92) states that,

The blog pages freely available on the Internet tend to be very user-friendly and setting up your own is usually a straightforward process, with no specialist technical knowledge or expertise needed. You simply visit the homepage of the blog and follow the instructions.

The number of blogs available on the Internet makes people easy to create more than one blog. They can be able to create another blog though they have one already in another homepage. But, it is better if they have one blog only because they can focus to use it and doing the best for it, than they are doing something in one blog but in the other side they are thinking about what are they going to do in your another blog. The students don’t need to know all of the blogs’ instructions. Just choose one blog commonly used by most people such as Blogger or WordPress.

The most popular blog tools have a large supporting community. You will be able to find free themes for your blog and customize it the way you like (SiteGround.com). Weblog has similarity with website in designing the theme or the appearance. It means that the students are possible to change the theme of their blog if they feel bored sometimes. If their blog has beautiful theme, it will attract people to visit it. The students can adjust their blog appearance with their writing about. Here, the students cannot only be able to write English well, but they need to be creative too.

Using Blog for Learning English

People create a blog for different purposes. Most of them use it for writing their knowledge or information about something they know. There are also people who use it to write their daily activity or memorable moment in their life. Essentially, writing is the most activity done in blog. Blog also can be used as one of the Medias to learn English. Dudeney and Hockly (2007: 87) states that blogs used in education are known as edublogs. Edublogs cover a wide range of topics related to education, from musing on educational policy and developments to learner composition.

There are three kinds of edublogs, they are tutor blog, student blog, and class blog. Tutor blog is used by teacher. The students are also allowed to post comments on it. Student blog is set up and maintained by the students. The students are better to give responses to the others’ blog. Class blog is used by an entire class. This is just allowed the students to post comments on certain topics, or when they have class work, or it can be on any other issues that teacher thinks interesting to the students. For the more differences in using each blog, Dudeney and Hockly (2007: 90) have explained in the Table 2 below.

Table 2

The Differences between Tutor Blog, Student Blog, and Class Blog

Tutor Blog	Student Blog	Class Blog
· Set homework.	· Personal and family information (including photos).	· Reaction to a film, article, class topic, current affairs.
· Provide a summary of class work.	· Extra writing practice on class topics.	· Things learners like/don’t like doing in the class.
· Provide links to extra reading/listening material.	· Regular comments on current affairs	· A class project on any topic.
· Question and answer (e.g. about grammar, class work).	· Research and present information on a topic (e.g. an English-speaking country).
· Exam/Study tips.	· A photoblog on learner’s country, last holiday, town.

Learning English by using blog is focusing in learning to write and to read well. Although there is also audio blogging that can encourage the students to have a good listening, that kind of blog is not familiar yet in the networked world especially in learning. Writing in the blog has own certainty and reading has too. Before going further, the certainty of each step can be found in the following paragraph.

Writing for Learning English

Writing is the first step to learn English using blog. Here, the students are expected to write about everything in English in order to improve their English learning. Then, when the students write in their blog? The students can start to write after the class or the school is over. The teacher should give the explanation first to the students that it is about freely writing, so that the students are not too burdened by this writing. Here, “freely” doesn’t mean that the students can write everything as they like. They also have to consider about language use and the structure of the text though it is not really a big deal here.

A simple blogs project that you can use with learners of all levels is to get your students to set up their own student blogs, writing about themselves, their interest, family, home, country, and so on, and including some photos. (Dudeney and Hockly, 2007:91)

This edublog aims to be seen and read by other students, so that the students must pay attention about the language used in the blog. The most important here is that the students must write in good manners. Using slang language is allowed here. For example the using of wanna, gonna, gotta, foreva’, and so on. Those might be mistakes for scientific writing or article, but this blog is about free-writing. The teacher will not concern about it because he/she just want to know what have been written by his/her students. The most banned here is the using of hard words or vituperation and mocking words that can offend others. Such as the using of what the fuck…, what the hell…, mother fucker, and many more. Those are roughly words to be heard, read, said, and also to be written.

Essentially, this blog aims the students to write English in a good way. Although their writing is not much enough, at least they concern about the structure and the grammar of the text. This trains the students to write the heavier text or article because the structure and the grammar will always be emphasized in all kinds of writing. What Should the Students Write In Their Weblog? Here are some topics the students can write in their weblog.

1. Diary of learning English

When we are talking about diary, our description will be full of a book people have to write about their life day by day and it is secret. We can’t say that it wasteful or useless because there is nobody knows about what they write on their diary but themselves. It is not totally right at all because people believe that someday it will become a reminding for them when their mind cannot be able to remember every moment in their life anymore. This diary aims the students to learn English. It is also different with the common diary because it is absolutely not secret. Even students are supposed to read other students’ diary and giving comments for it without making the makers angry of them.

Next, the students can write about their experience in learning English. There might be some questions that can be outline before they are going to write in blog, such as:

· Tell me about the English class running before! Is that fun or boring?

· What knowledge or information did you get in the English class?

· What made you confused?

· Do you have any suggestion, critic, or advice about the recent learning?

· What do you want to do in the next meeting?

· Etc

Those questions help the students being not confused anymore about what are they going to write. The students might have many more outlines after they have attended in the English class. This writing must be honestly from their feeling because they don’t have to see others’ experience and others’ writing. The teacher should determine the best time for the students to finish their writing in blog in order to make them give comments for it soon. It can be 2-3 day after the English class is over.

2. The latest news happened around them

Writing the latest news happened around them can be a good topic to fulfill the students weblog because it is always enjoyable talking about the up date news which spread up around them. They can give their comment about it in the blog, moreover if the comments are containing of pro and contra side, it will become interesting defend their own argument.

When the students write about the news happening now, it’s very possible for many people to enter their blog because the people sometimes type the keyword that is being talked by most people recently. Here, the students must write the topic according to the trusted sources from any media by giving quotation on it.

The other reason why the teacher should suggest this topic for the students to write in their blog is that to make the students aware of all the things happening around them. It can make them become open-minded students. They are also prepared to think critically about the problems around the world, and bringing it to be a material to discuss with the others. When the students have already understood with the problems, they can be ready if they want to visit or live in another country someday.

Reading the Other Students’ weblog

The next step after writing is entering the other students’ blog in order to read what have been written in the blog. Reading doesn’t need much time than writing. It just needs thinking of the writing. But, here the students might have a problem before they are going to enter the blog. Should they read all of the students’ writing? They can read all as long as they are not burdened. But, it’s better if the teacher divides the students in some groups. For example, one group contains of five students. It is a duty for the student to read four another’s in his/her group without forbidding them to read another groups’ writing.

Reading doesn’t need much skill than writing. After reading the text, the students are just expected to know the other students’ problems in learning English and trying to solve it. The readers can also give comment about the language use and the structure of the text with still paying attention to the politeness of their words.

Sharing your experience of reading with others can benefit you in several ways. First of all, your reading comprehension improves when you talk about what you read, (Lecky and Jeffries, 22). Talking about learning English experience in the blog by posting comments is different when they talk to others directly. Talking face-to-face can improve the students’ speaking ability and trains their pronunciation and also the fluency.

In addition, the students are not only expected to give the responses in their friends’ blog, but also they can visit and post comments to their teachers’ blog. The students might follow the way their teacher writes in his/her blog or maybe they can talk about what the teacher writes with the other students through their blog.

Teacher’s Role

In the using blog for learning English here, the teacher can be controller for his/her students’ writing in their blog. He/she has to pay attention to the language use and make sure there is no vituperation on it. Although using blog for learning English can be said semi-assignment, the teacher still has to emphasize that the students have to do it regularly as the time the teacher defined. In addition, Brewster, Ellis, and Girard (2002: 41) states that,

Traditional whole-class teaching, where the teacher is like a conductor is an important part of language teaching. This technique for managing learning which we shall refer to as teaching-centered means the teacher controls the action in the classroom.

Through this blog, the teacher can do approach with the students indirectly. The teacher can observe the writing skill of the students. From there too, the teacher can also see how far the students understood in learning English. When reading the students’ writing, the teacher might find some complaints from the students about class situation, learning English itself, the method used in the class or it can be about the way the teacher teaches them. But, the teacher shouldn’t be upset because of the complaints. Conversely, it can be introspection or correction for the teacher him/her selves to be better in the next teaching.

Being the good controller is not enough. The most important skill the teacher should have is creativity. If the method used in the class is still same, the students are possible to write the same experiences in their blog. Therefore, before the teacher gives the students lessons in the class, he/she should have the new method or games never shown before. It avoids boredom in the class and the students can do something new in their experience.

The teacher also can be evaluator in the last meeting. If he/she found some questions unanswered yet or unanswered well by the students in the comments, the teacher must has the right answer and conveying it in front of the class. Surely, it is better if the students can evaluate together with the teacher.

Weblog Application in the Class Activity

Evaluation can be held once a month when the students have met for about 4-8 meeting (some schools have twice a week to learn English). The teacher uses one meeting to evaluate what have been done by the students in their blog. There are some concepts of evaluation that can be applied by them, depends on the teacher’s or the students’ interest.

Communicative approach is often refer to as activity-based and commonly involves the use of three types of activities: problem-solving activities, interactive activities, and creative activities. Brewster, Ellis, and Girard (2002: 44, 45)

This approach can be the re-study of what have learned in the classroom. It helps the students to keep remembering the learning and they will be prepared for the test by studying together with their friend in the class. For example, the teacher can point toward to the students to tell the information they get from reading the writing of their friends. They can also convey to the class about the most interesting method and games used in the class, or about their friends’ problems, questions, or difficulty in learning English, and so on. The most important here is the class should run relaxing to make the students enjoyable and comfortable during the class.

The Advantages of Using Blog for Learning English

In the networked world, using blog can be an appropriate way to learn English. There are some advantages to use this method, such as:

· Knowing the existence of the blog in the networked world and telling them that they can earn much money from managing blog.

· The students can easily see the others’ writing and posting comments directly on it. They blog users can also post comments back.

· The teacher and the students are able to open it anywhere and anytime.

· It is computer-writing, making the teacher easy to read it, because sometimes we have met the students who can’t write neatly but that is the way they write. Perhaps this case can be affected in their mark and this is unfair.

· The readers might be not only from the class, but also all of people around the world can read it. So, the students can have connection with the people overseas. If they make a friend with foreigners, it will motivate the students themselves to learning and practice to speak English better.

· The blog application has much built-in functionality such as posting articles, HTML editor, commenting, archive, menus, themes management, etc. From this application, the students might not be bored to keep using it and managing it regularly.

The Weakness of Using Blog for Learning English

Although the students can get many advantages from using blog for learning English, this method unfortunately has some weakness too, they are:

· Not all of the students have a computer. Although the most important here is not only having a computer, but if the students already have it, that can enlighten the students to type their experience without going to computer rental or going to warnet.

· This method is not appropriate to be applied in the village schools because there are lacks of hot-spot connection availability.

· For the students who are lack of the knowledge about operating internet or blog especially, they can spend a lot of time and money to make it done in the warnet.

Conclusion

Using weblog for learning English could be the appropriate choice in this globalization era. It can encourage the students to have good skills in writing and reading English. Through this method, the students are expected to write their learning English experience in their blog. Besides, when the students have already finished writing what they have got in the English class, they can also read the other students’ writing by entering their blogs. From the students’ activity, the teacher has to pay attention to his/her students’ activity by visiting their blogs regularly and controlling what they have written. This also can be approaching from the teacher to the students by knowing the ability and the weakness of the students when getting the learning or the lesson from the teacher in the English class.

This activity is not ended still in the online work, but this activity can be continued in the class through the evaluation held by the teacher and the students themselves. The students can get many advantages by using this method. But, there are also the weaknesses too. Most of it is because of the availability of the internet around the students. Therefore, this method is appropriate to use in the city where there are warnet we can find easily. All in all, using blog or weblog for learning English is a new activity for the students who don’t know much about blogging with the awareness about the usage of it.

REFERENCES

Lecky, S. M. and Jeffries, Linda. Advanced Reading Power. Longman

Brewster, Jean. Ellis, Gail. and Girard, Denis. (2002). The Primary English Teacher’s Guide. Pearson Education Limited

Dudeney, Gavin. and Hockly, Nicky. (2007). How to Teach English with Technology. Pearson Longman.

Burgess, Jean. (2007). “Blogging to Learn, Learning to Blog”. In Bruns, Axel. Jacob, Joanne (ed.). Uses of blogs. New York: Peter Lang Production Inc.

Butler-Pascoe, Mary Ellen. and Wiburg, Karin M. (2003). Technology and Teaching English Language Learners. Pearson Education, inc.

Warschauer, Mark. Shetzer, Heidi. Meloni, Christine. (2000). Internet For English Teaching. USA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.

Crystal, David. (2003). English as a Global Language. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Suarez-Orozco, Mercelo M.. and Qin-Hilliard, Desiree Baolian. (2004). Globalization: Culture and Education in the New Millennium. London: University Of California Press.