Written By: Zuhria Husna (Zoe)
It is an undeniable fact that nowadays Internet has answered many urgent needs of our demanding modern society. It is like the soul giving a life to every digital medium whether it is in the form of hardware (e.g. mobile phone, laptop) or software such as social media (e.g. Facebook, Wassap, email), blog/wiki, and YouTube. In other words, the Internet access has connected digital media around the globe in order to be able to interconnect people as the global citizens. Thus, people can instantly communicate with others, search valuable information, and share their ideas in/to every corner of the world for various personal, social, and professional purposes.
This cutting-edge digital access has paved people the way for doing multiple things more effectively and efficiently. For instance, most people can learn and master some particular skills by simply reading tutorials from various experts on blogs or watching them live on YouTube. All of them can be attained for free in more flexible time. It means that people no longer need to attend many formal schools and pay sky-rocketing tuition to enhance multiple new skills.
I think this new digital environment should be able to stimulate the millennial English teachers like us to independently establish more ideal spaces that can optimally enhance the processes as well as the outcomes of English language teaching and the students’ autonomous learning (ELTAL) in Indonesia. It will be much better if we can create our own Moodle through one digital platform that we consider effective to accommodate four language skills (e.g. listening, speaking, reading, writing) at the same time.
Before exploring the potentials of blog any further, let's first analyze the drawbacks of ELT in Indonesia. One of the main triggers of the unsatisfactory results of ELT in our country is the limited time allotment for English class in both school and university levels. It is only set 100 to 135 minutes covered in one meeting per week. Moreover, the class activities per meeting are designed as a combination of a seminar (lecture) and controlled-practices. Thus, the teachers often run out of time to give the students more spaces to build their own autonomous learning through freer practices at class because the time is mostly consumed by the teachers to deliver a lecture and instructions for the controlled-practices. In fact, it has been scientifically suggested that the students’ learning autonomy contribute significant positive outcomes to the language learning inasmuch as it naturally empowers the students’ ability (e.g. competence, skill) and willingness (e.g. motivation, confidence). Consequently, the holistic objectives of ELT in Indonesia is still really difficult to achieve.
Apart of the status of English as a foreign language in Indonesia, the above recessive phenomenon happens because our educational institutions do not have sufficient classrooms and budget to extend the time allotment of English class in its curricula. In fact, not only English but also other subjects need more time allotment in order to result in significant progresses.
In developed countries such as the US, UK, and Australia, most subjects/courses at universities are set in at least 180 minutes covered in two meetings per week, in which 120 minutes are allocated for the seminar, while the remaining 60 minutes is for the tutorial. In this case, the seminar and tutorial classes are separated. Therefore, the teachers can deliver their lectures optimally without being worried of running out time. Meanwhile, the students can fully establish autonomous learning in the tutorial class because they are assigned by their teachers to be independent and/or collaborative tutors for their own peers in solving problems set in particular freer tasks through a discussion.
In the tutorial classes designed by the above developed countries, the teachers only play a role as an observer and moderator clarifying every misleading information formulated by the students in the discussion forum. No wonder if the progress of education in those developed countries are much faster and its results are much greater than the one practiced in Indonesia.
In the attempt of tackling the recessive circumstance of ELT in Indonesia, I see the potentials of blogosphere in covering the holistic needs of ELTAL through the usage of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is a user generated-content mainly used to express ideas and creativity. This medium is categorized as an asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) because it does not happen in a real-time. Many specific types of Web 2.0 such as Blogger and Wordpress provide their users with both free and premium digital platforms. Hence, we can choose one of them based on our own convenience and available budget in order to be able to build our own ideal cyber class.
The first generation of web-based platforms allow their users to produce and share their thoughts in the form of written discourses that can be virtually posted as blog entries. Thus, their entries can receive feedbacks from any readers residing around the world. However, we as the users still can control ones who can give comments to our entries if we want to set our digital platforms for a specific community by giving our selected audience a particular identity through the usage of a unique nickname or an identification number. Therefore, we can simply ignore or delete uninvited idle/spamming participants who can intervene the process and the successful outcomes of our language teaching as well as our students’ autonomous learning.
1. Writing & Reading Skills
Despite its unreal-time mode, Web 2.0 has become the major interest for the teachers attempting at integrating technology in their language classrooms because its access is much cheaper and faster than YouTube that is only set for content-creation in the form of videos. In most cases, language teachers employ web-based media to assess their students’ writing skills whether it is fully done online or through a blended-practice (combination of face-to-face and online classrooms). In this case, I recommend that online weblog be used as an additional tutorial class serving as a weekly assignment integrated with the regular face-to-face (offline) classroom.
In the practical application of weblog in writing class, we as the managing director of it has an authority to generate various creative tasks for the students’ tutorial class. For instance, we can assign our students to work in group of 4 or 5 to develop a particular topic into a short/long written discourse based on the assigned genre such as a functional text (e.g. procedure, tips, notice) and/or an essay (e.g. descriptive, recount, argumentative texts). After their collaborative writing is accomplished, it must be submitted to us in the form softcopy. The softcopy will be posted on our blog entries as the peer-teaching material for the weekly online tutorial class. Through that way, our students are also encouraged to be the active contributors in our virtual teaching medium.
During the 30/60-minute-online tutorial, the students must give insightful comments towards the text composed by the assigned tutorial group playing a role as their peer-teachers (tutors) on the comment box provided right under the entry segment. The feedbacks can be related to the organization (e.g. generic structure), content (e.g. accuracy of relating ideas/details to the assigned context/topic in every segment/paragraph), clarity (e.g. grammatical structures, cohesion, coherence), vocabulary (e.g. variety & accuracy of the choice of words), and mechanics (e.g. punctuation, spelling) of the presented text. Meanwhile, the tutors can give logical rebuttals if they think that the comments addressed to their writing are inaccurate.
We can take a charge as an observer and moderator clarifying every misconception generated by either the students or their tutors during the online tutorial class. Therefore, the students and their tutors have more sufficient time to establish a more autonomous well-organized collaborative learning environment outside their offline classroom under our supervision.
For its objective assessment, we can write our detailed evaluation on the quality of the tutorial group’s composition on the submitted softcopy. After being reviewed, the softcopy must be given back to the assigned tutorial group. Therefore, all the members of the group know about the progress they have made in their collaborative writing. The grade obtained in the online tutorial class can also be integrated with other assessment results gained in the regular offline classroom.
The nature of reading and writing skills is quite the same as both of them are dealing with written texts. Therefore, the weblog can also be an effective and efficient medium for the the students’ online reading tutorial class. In university level, the reading skill is more directed to master reading strategies (e.g. previewing, predicting, skimming, scanning, inferring, etc) than merely identifying the generic structures and the language features of written texts. Thus, they can accurately identify the main implicit/explicit ideas, supporting details, and essential keywords of the texts set in pre-intermediate to advanced levels without wasting too much time.
In the online reading tutorial class, we can assign the students’ tutorial group to search an authentic text related to their field of study. Then, the members of the group have to collaborate well in order to generate some questions from their own selected text based on the learned competence standard (e.g. finding main ideas, supporting details, keywords). The questions can be delivered through some tasks such as answering multiple-choice or T/F questions, matching words, completing tables based on clues, etc. In this case, they also have to find the correct answers for their generated questions as the key answers. After being completed, their collaborative work must be submitted in the form of softcopy. Thus, we can upload the softcopy on our blog entries as the peer-teaching material for the online reading tutorial class.
During the reading tutorial class, all students have to work in group of 4 or 5 to answer the reading questions formulated by the assigned tutorial group in 15–30 minutes. Afterwards, the tutors have to give feedbacks to their peer groups by presenting their key answers. In this stage, the tutors and their peers can reciprocally clarify whether the answers they provide for the reading task are accurate or not trough a logical discussion.
For its final objective assessment, we can evaluate the peer-teaching material developed by the assigned tutorial group from the quality of its formulated questions and the accuracy of its generated answer keys. Of the above learning methods, the students, indeed, can be much more autonomously comprehend, analyze, evaluate, as well as produce the learning materials through collaborative writing, reading, and brainstorming.
2. Speaking & Listening Skills
Most people think that weblog can only be used for reading and writing. In fact, nowadays the next generation of Web 2.0 has been able to be employed to upload and play videos. No wonder if many bloggers in the 21st century have transformed themselves into vloggers (video-bloggers) inasmuch as their blog contents are designed as the combinations of written articles supported with creative videos.
For its practical application, we can selectively upload videos performed by native speakers of English as the models of spoken English for the speaking and listening classes. Now that the concept of World Englishes has been widely approved by many countries of both native and non-native speakers of English, we and our students are allowed to produce our own English videos/audios as the alternative models. Therefore, we can introduce various English dialects to our students.
In this modern democratic era, the main objective of learning English is not strictly encouraging the students to speak standardized English as exactly the same as its native speakers do, but rather to communicate with the global citizens by using intelligible Englishes through a mutual self-awareness that must be voluntarily built by both the speakers and their interlocutors in dealing with particular special phonological features of various dialects. The strong evidence of this proposition is that some spoken dialogs set in the listening sections of official IELTS are performed by the non-native speakers of English (e.g. Indian, Spanish, Chinese).
Of the above scientific framework and proposition, thus, we can assign our students to generate their own spoken English in the form of videos/audios as the peer-teaching materials for the online listening and speaking tutorial classes. However, we have to keep monitoring them, so that we can give insightful feedbacks to them if their spoken English and its contents are inaccurate in some ways.
For the speaking tutorial class, specifically we may assign the students’ tutorial group to describe a mysterious thing or present the biography of a mysterious famous figure by using 5/10 sentences that have to be orally delivered in turn by the members of the assigned tutorial group (e.g. Who am I? I am an American IT inventor. Although I'm dropped out of Harvard University, I can be a young billionaire due to my cutting-edge invention called Facebook). They have to record their oral description or presentation in the form of a video/an audio. Then we will upload it on our blog entries.
During the speaking tutorial class, the participated students have to guess the thing or the famous figure orally described or presented by their tutors as well as give feedbacks/comments to their speaking skill by consulting it to our stipulated marking rubric (e.g. content, context, pronunciation, fluency, tone, self-confidence). The tutors can give a clarification if their peers’ answers are incorrect or even give rebuttals if they think that the feedbacks addressed to their speaking skill is inaccurate.
In this case, the listening tutorial class can be set in the same procedure as the one applied in the speaking tutorial class. The difference is that the participated students in the former must look for some essential information from the spoken monologs and/or dialogs performed by their tutors on the uploaded videos/audios. The monologs/dialogs are designed based on the assigned functional contexts (e.g. telling a biography of famous figure, describing people, giving/asking directions, etc).
For its final objective assessment, we can evaluate the peer-teaching material developed by the assigned tutorial group in the online listening or speaking tutorial class from the quality of its content (e.g. accuracy of the presented information & formulated questions-answers). Meanwhile, the speaking skill of the tutors have to be assessed by using our stipulated marking rubric (e.g. context, pronunciation, fluency, tone, self-confidence).
From the above analytical exploration, I can come to a conclusion that blogosphere especially weblog, indeed, can be the new alternative ideal environment for our students’ peer-teaching and autonomous learning as well as our personal teaching reflection as its managing directors inasmuch as it can effectively and efficiently accommodate the peer-teaching and learning of four language skills at the same time. Thus, I am positive that the development of my online tutorial class on the platform of Zyber English World (www.zyber-englishworld.blogspot.com) can optimally empower the students’ abilities and willingness to achieve the holistic objectives of English learning.
So, why don’t you follow my revolutionary movement to make significant progresses in Indonesia’s ELT through the usage of well-organized digital media, millennial teachers? Whether you agree or disagree with this proposed idea, please give me some written insightful feedbacks supported with your logical reasons on the internal comment box below as well as on the external comment box provided on the Facebook Page of Zyber English World. Therefore, we can share our thoughts as well as practicing speaking up our mind together in English. (Please note that this online discussion forum is for the registered collaborative teachers only).
If you have not been registered as official Registered Public English Teachers on Zyber English World yet, but want to be ones, please read the detailed procedure by clicking the following blue link 👉 (Link: How To Register Yourselves as Collaborative English Teachers/Learners on Zyber English World Weblog). Don't hesitate to sign yourself up inasmuch as this weblog is a non-profit platform that wants to unite all altruistic English teachers from every corner of the world to share their ideas as well as teach English to the public English learners for free as a part of their world's community service as the interconnected global citizens. In this case, I am really encouraged by the spirit of humanity to make a positive impact through my Community Social Responsibility (CSR) program called English Teachers Without Borders. Click the following blue link to read the details about the program 👉 (Link: English Teachers Without Borders).
I'm looking forward to welcoming more altruistic and passionate public English teachers out there to collaboratively transform the field of education in our planet through this digital English teaching and learning platform. Peace out! 😘📚😘
References:
Husna, Z. (2017). Promoting English as a Lingua Franca Model in a Private EFL School in Indonesia. Malang: SmArtz Media.
Kessler, G. (2009). Student-initiated attention to form in wiki-based collaborative writing. Language Learning & Technology, 13(1), 79-95.
Kirkpatrick, A. (2007). World Englishes: Implications for international communication and English language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lougheed, L. (2004). Barron's How to Prepare for the TOEFL Essay (2nd Edition). Canada: Georgetown Book Warehouse
Shirota, F. B. (2013). Language Learning Skills through YouTube: Some Proposed Ideas. Reform Magazine. 45, 7–8.
Yannuar, N. (2010). Exploring Learners Autonomous Abilities in Blog Designed for Independent Learning (Master Thesis). Ohio: Ohio University.
Zunaidah, A. (2013). YouTube Classes: Wake up, it’s the 21st Century. Reform Magazine, 45, 9–10.
Best Regards,
Zuhria Husna (Zoe)
