With the rapid growth of the world and
technology, English language teaching and learning has become more important
from day to day. Recently, technology has indeed influenced the new pedagogy of
teaching. Social network services (SNSs) have spread rapidly throughout the
world and have become phenomenon not only among the teenagers but all level of
ages of people around the world. Boyd
& Ellison (2007) defined social network services (SNS) as “Web-based
services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public
profile bounded within a system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom
they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections
and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of
these connections may vary from site to site. Social network services (SNS) are
increasingly popular among youngsters in Malaysia, especially among the UiTM
students. One of the most common social network sites are Facebook and Twitter.
Students not only establish social interaction among individuals in the social
network sites but they also created groups for their courses for educational
purposes.
Educators are starting to realize that
importance of integrating social network in ESL classroom. Nowadays, everyone
have a Facebook account. It will be easier for educators to teach using tools
which students are engaged in. The use of Facebook by students opens up a great
opportunity for educators in UiTM especially English lecturers to identify the
strength and weaknesses of social network services as a tool to teach writing
in an ESL classroom. Previous studies have revealed that teachers found that
integrating social network services (SNSs) in ESL writing classroom could
advantage students in terms of broadening their knowledge, build up their
confidence and increase their motivation level in the ESL writing classroom
(Melur Md Yunus, Hadi Saleh & Chenzi, 2012). However, integrating social
network services (SNSs) in the ESL writing classroom could also lead to other
problems. According to Melur Md Yunus, Hadi Saleh & Chenzi (2012), students
may face difficulties in concentrating to the materials when they use the
computer, not enough facilities and problems related to internet access and
furthermore, teachers’ insufficient time to interact with the students. By
identifying are the strengths and weaknesses, taking into consideration the
lecturers’ perception of integrating social networks services (SNSs) in ESL
writing classroom, , we could make improvements and enhance the use of
technology for better teaching in the future and encourage the ESL students to
love writing.
Research reveals that there is a need for more
studies to explore the teachers’ and students’ attitude towards the use of
technology, specifically in terms of integrating social network services (SNSs)
in ESL writing classroom to provide better insights. Due to that, there is a
must in conducting this research in order to identify what are the lecturers’
perceptions towards the use of social network services (SNSs) in ESL classroom
to promote students’ writing skills. This study is undertaken to investigate
the lecturers’ perception on integrating social network services (SNSs) in ESL
classroom, specifically the English lecturers teaching in the UiTM campuses in
Malaysia. This study will also review the strength and weaknesses of using social
network services (SNSs) in promoting students’ writing skills and suggestions
of activities that could be integrated using the SNSs in the ESL writing
classroom.
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