Series | Studi e ricerche
Edited book | La didattica delle lingue nel nuovo millennio
Chapter | Teaching Writing in EAP Contexts

Teaching Writing in EAP Contexts

A Case Study of Students’ Reactions to the Use of Blogs for Academic Writing Tasks

Abstract

Academic writing is a particular type of scholarly interaction which signals the writer’s affiliation to a specific discourse community. Developing academic writing skills should become a priority for higher education. This paper describes a small-scale study which investigates the role of blogging in developing academic writing skills in undergraduate students. Blogging is viewed as a platform where the scholarly interaction between members of the same discourse community can take place. The paper is based on the survey data and observation during the experiment conducted at Alecu Russo Balti State University of Moldova. It reports on how EFL students reacted to the use of blogs for academic writing tasks. The findings suggest that students seem to have a positive attitude to blogging pointing out to such benefits as: enhanced self-efficacy, awareness of the writing process, development of reader awareness, increased responsibility for the quality of the writing. We argue that blogging can yield significant improvement in undergraduate students’ academic writing.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Published May 15, 2018 | Language: en

Keywords BloggingScholarly interactionDiscourse communityWriting approachAcademic writing


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