A proposed role for blogging in the ESL writing classroom

Abstract

Blogging has the potential to confer agency on to its users, as their mastery of literacies increases. The number of computer users who regularly update their weblogs has grown exponentially in recent years and the growth of this medium is expected to continue. Blogging represents a new information medium which requires the mastery of new technological literacies, since it not only includes text, but also a visually driven layout, as well as social networks that are actively engaged in building a community of writers and readers. Blogging has also facilitated the expansion of the critical public sphere wherein information is analyzed, debated, and otherwise disseminated without federal or corporate control. For these reasons, Intermediate to advanced level English as a Second Language students could benefit greatly from exposure to the critical public sphere of blogging, as it would also allow them to communicate from a position of authority in the target language. The features of blogging also lend credence to it as a viable application of existing ESL and composition pedagogical practices and theories. Given this relationship, it is remarkable that little, if any, theoretical synthesis has taken place so as to more effectively construct blog-driven communicative tasks that take theory and pedagogy into consideration. This research seeks to fill this need by providing an understand of how blogging functions socially and critically as a new medium and tool, and also by defining the conditions under which it would provide the greatest benefits for ESL writing students seeking to gain membership to academe and western culture at large.