Monday, 7 October 2013

My Research Problem


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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