Week7: Blogging and L2 writing- what is so special about blogging? (Lee, 2010 & Sun, 2010)

  About 10 years ago, my second language writing experience was that writing daily journals and essays about specific topics. Sometimes I used email to learn business English. Those writing works were only available for me and my teacher; I never shared my writings to peers or other students. Corrections were only made by teachers and once I received them, I had never looked them again.
  Most second language learners are afraid of making mistakes and those mistakes to be open to other learners except teachers. Well, since peer review wasn't that common 10 years ago, only teachers can see and correct learners' errors. Writing in public space with limited second language wasn't easy for beginners or intermediate level learners. In addition, even though we know that writing regularly is very helpful to improve writing skill, it requires sufficient efforts and motivation.
  Since social networking became so popular, and expressing ourselves through social network tools became common, writing seems a part of our lives and became easy; we can write anything we want and share our thoughts with others. In second language learning, using blog for writing practice seems to have lots of advantages in many aspects.

  Some effectiveness that were introduced in Lee's (2010) and Sun's (2010) articles were following:
- reflective writing through self- expression (Lee, 2010)
- interactive exchange through social networking (Lee, 2010)
- increasing motivation to write for a broad audience (Lee, 2010)
- promote participants’ autonomous monitoring of their own writing ( sun, 2010)

  Both articles found that regularly creating blog posts has positive impact on learners' writing fluency and  helps learners to gain confidence in their writing and to develop their own approaches that suit their personal writing styles (Lee, 2010). Learners may become more comfortable with writing in their second language as they write more on their own blog, and this actually makes L2 writing more authentic activity.
  Interactive exchange made through social networking would be beneficial if learners focus on specific language aspects and be aware of the differences between their writing and other's. Last week, we talked about how to use different tools to teach and learn L2 grammar, and blog was included in one of those tools. Since writing is also closely related to grammar, learners may have benefits from having blog which is a archive of their writing.
  Even though blogging was a requirement for our class, I felt some differences in my writing every week. Writing became much easier (even though I still feel some limitation) and allows me think more deeply. As a English second language learner, I am personally enjoying writing blog posts about class readings and reflecting myself through writing.