Research on Blogs
In L2 Learning
To understand whether blogs are really beneficial for L2 learning, it is important to know the findings of
the previous studies conducted to investigate the effectiveness of applying blogs in the L2 contexts. Among
these studies, some of them attempted to discover students’ affective responses (e.g., perceptions, beliefs,
attitude, feelings, reaction, etc.) to the use of blogs for L2 learning. The findings of these studies are presented
as follows.
de Almeida Soares (2008) explored nine pre-intermediate EFL Brazilian students’ perceptions of the value
of using blogs as a part of their English learning. The three-month exploratory practice was carried out. The
findings suggested that the students viewed blogs as learning tools for them and blogs helped their English.
Another study by Armstrong and Retterer (2008) investigated the use of blogs at an intermediate level in
Spanish class. Sixteen students in the class were writing online by means of the blogs. By the end of the
semester, most students expressed that they liked writing the blogs. They found that blogging was an appealing
way to communicate in a foreign language. The overall experience of blogging proved to be a positive one for
the students. The study by Jones (2006) sought to examine ESL (English as a second language) students’
perceptions regarding the implementation of blogs in the writing classes. The participants were five students
who used blogs for four aspects of the writing process: peer responding, editing, revising and publishing their
writing assignments. The data from interviews, open-ended questions, surveys and students’ reflective journals
showed that the students all liked the blogging aspect of the class for writing tasks, and therefore, responded
positively to the use of blogs. Ducate and Lomicka (2008) reported on students’ reactions to blogging based on
a year-long project in which students learning French or German as a L2 involved in reading blogs at the first
semester and writing blogs at the second semester. Data from students’ blogs, reports, surveys and interviews
of focus group suggested that students enjoyed the process of blogging and would like to continue to use the
blog as a learning tool in their future target language classes. In Ward’s study (2004), 40 participants were
asked to read each others’ blogs and give comments. A survey concerning the effectiveness of using blogs as
learning tools was distributed. The majority of the students preferred writing the blogs to writing the traditional
journals and believed that writing on blogs can improve English.
