INTEGRATING SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS INTO ESL WRITING CLASSROOM: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
SUMMARY
There are many advantages when social networking tools are being integrated into ESL writing classroom. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter allow students or people from different social circles to exchange their opinions regarding a certain topic and help to broaden student's knowledge. This will trigger student's creative thinking skills and enable them to voice out their thoughts in a less stress environment. Other than that, blogging is also an alternative whereby students can improve their writing skills as teachers and friends can leave their comments anytime. However, there are disadvantages as students tend to get distracted by other materials from the social networking sites. The habit of using short forms will mislead students in their language acquisition. Schools with limited internet access will not be able to fully apply this method into their education system.
MY EXPERIENCE
As a student, I do not think this is practical if it is to be applied into the Malaysian education system. This is because there is still a large area in Sarawak where the internet access is limited. Students from rural areas such as Ulu Kapit (Sarawak) and Marudi (Sarawak) will definitely be left out if this system is to be applied as they are still lacking in terms of technologies. Besides that, majority of the students tend to misuse social websites as they preferred to spend their time browsing the sites looking for entertainments rather than brainstorming ideas for writing tasks. Today, students would much more prefer to copy and paste from the online resources if they were asked to do their tasks online. Learners will be frustrated if they were to be flooded by a pool of information with little control regarding the accuracy of the information. The usage of short forms or informal writing habits in social networking sites too, will affect student's actual writing. These are the reasons why I strongly believed that social networking sites are mainly for social interaction and not for teaching ESL writing.
WHAT WILL I DO
I will encourage students to interact more through social websites such as facebook and twitter but definitely not for developing their writing skills. In my opinion, social websites are mainly suitable for interactions and networking among people but not for academic benefits as there are too many distractions online. Private forums can be set up to ensure online safety where there would not be any unnecessary distractions or leaking of private information. Students are allowed to start any new discussion as long as it is separated from their private lives. Other than that, student's writing skills can be improved by giving them topics related to their real life. In this way, students are able to fully concentrate on their academic without fearing it would affect their social lives.
