ARTICLE REVIEW (TASK 2)

A) Sun, Yu Chih (2009). Voice Blog: An Exploratory Study of Language Learning. Language Learning & Technology, 13 (2), 88-103

Background
This study uses voice blogs as platform for an extensive study for language learners’ speaking skills. The study collected data by surveying the learners’ blogging processes, investigating learning strategies and conducting retrospectives, interviews.
Results reveal that students (a) developed a series of blogging stages such as conceptualizing, brainstorming, articulation, monitoring and evaluating, and used a wide variety of strategies to cope with blogging related difficulties, and (b) perceived blogging as a means of learning, self-presentation, information exchange, and social networking. Findings suggest that voice blogs can constitute a dynamic forum that fosters extensive practice, learning motivation, authorship, and development of learning strategies.

B) This research had a purpose of reporting the usage of voice blog to L2 speaking courses and to investigate its effect to the participants’ learning processes and strategies. It also examines the participants’ perception in what voice blog could offer to the development of their learning experience. It aims to provide blogging in a theoretical and pedagogical foundation to prove that the extensive practice on voice blog can form an essential part of instruction, and that voice blog enable students to structure their thoughts and to make them publicly available in a way that no other media can possibly offer. In data collecting, the study uses to types of procedures; surveys of students’ attitudes towards the use of voice blog and by interviewing the students. 46 college students made of two classes from Taiwan of both genders ranging from freshman to graduates were taken as participants all of which studies English as foreign language.The objective of the study is to enhance and encourage participants’ oral proficiency in English through the usage of voice blog. However this application was used as an add-on component that gives students additional oral practice in their public speaking class. Therefore, these participants also had to attend lectures, watch video demonstrations of speech delivery, in class discussion, role playing and some written assignments. Basically the researcher sets up a specific blog for each course so as to allow more interaction between the participants than asking them to create their own blogs. These blogs are accessible to both students from the two classes and are open to public so that anyone can view the blog and leave out comments. The blog also has both students’ and teacher’s interface and user-friendly online to keep the students’ oral diaries, basic functions such as time and calendar also management functions such as blogger’s profile and entries. It is also easy for teachers whom in its interface provided, can keep track of students’ posts, ID number and etc. in an online spreadsheet. The teacher will then explain to students on setting up profiles to the blog during the first week of the class and were asked to upload 30 blog entries and 10 voice responses of their friends’ entries throughout the semester. There were no formal instructions on how to prepare the voice blog post or expectations on how to produce a good voice blog. Results from the study indicated that the time spent for these students to record and post their recording are between 4-21 hours for all 40 voice blogs required for them with only 7 people who spent more than 30 minutes to produce a recording for their voice blog. In the area of blogging stages, the first area that is conceptualizing, 71% of the participants find it difficult to pick an appropriate topic due to topic-related language limitations. However, 49% claims that choosing topic gets easier as practice continues. Participants would find materials from books, listening to others speaking in English, listening to their friends whom have posted their voice blog to get an idea and pick topics that would attract the interest of the blog listeners. The second stage, brainstorming, 47% of the participant would write down their scripts before recording it by making outlines, checking their grammar and rehearsed about 5 times. Some would think in Chinese first and later translated it to English. Meanwhile in the articulation stage, 55% of the students rehearsed their speech several times for fluency before recording each and every of their voice blog entries. 56% of the participants listen to their recordings first before uploading it because they are concern over their pronunciation, grammar and fluency in the stage of monitoring while in evaluating, 80% would re-do their recordings if they have discovered errors in their grammar, unnecessary pauses and fluency problems. 55.6% agree that voice blogs can enhance their oral communication skills, 46.7% on self-presentation, while 44% are neutral about blogs could enhance the exchange of information while only 28.9% agree that voice blog is a new way of social networking.

C) This research is very interesting to me because as an English language learner and future English teacher, it gives me the idea on ways and methods to use the technology as ways to improve learners in acquiring language especially in speaking skills. Also, this article is very much related to my research on blogging as to boost once confidence in their usage of the second language. The research is well conducted and gives me a clear idea on how to conduct such lesson using voice blog for language teachers and learners in the future. However, we have to take into considerations on the level of students’ knowledge on computers and voice blogging for it could be quite new discovery to some. Therefore, early guidance on utilizing the application should be given. In addition, teachers may have to provide a lot of scaffolding to the weaker students and to the much younger students if voice blog were to be used. I would also suggest that the entries for the blogs be reduced to perhaps 10 recordings instead of 30 since it is only an add-on for the course for it could be time consuming and students could be lacking of confidence to speak spontaneously. This research would definitely help in the development of Malaysian education especially towards Malaysian English learners whom in majority, as we all know, lack the confidence to speak English in public. This would be the best medium for our learners to practice and give responses and feedbacks to each other. With technology embracing the education field, this is the best time to utilize such program to improve the learning of English language in Malaysia.


Link to this article: http://llt.msu.edu/vol13num2/sun.pdf