Md.
Zahangir Alam.
Farhana Binte Mizan.
Facebook as a Formal InstructionalA
FACEBOOK AS A FORMAL INSTRUCTIONAL ENVIRONMENT IN
FACILITATING L2 WRITING: IMPACTS AND CHALLENGES
Md.
Zahangir Alam Instructor.
Access Academy.
Asian University for Women Email:zahangir.
alam@auw.
Farhana Binte Mizan Lecturer.
Dept.
Of English.
Asian University of Bangladesh Email:farhanaborny@gamil.
Abstract In this century most of the ESL learners can be considered as digital natives due to the excessive urge and availability of technology.
There are hardly any learners who arenAot exposed to any means of social network in their personal life.
In use.
Facebook is seen to outbalance the rest of the social networks due to its convenience and easy going approach.
However, little is known about how Facebook assists learners and teachers to approach for teaching and learning ESL writing though it is found that this form of social media helps learners to socialize in their personal and academic life.
Hence, this paper describes the impact and challenges of including Facebook as a formal environment in facilitating this productive skill.
Results of this study indicate that using Facebook for the said purpose has had a positive impact on studentsAo writing practices though some challenges and suggestions for future implementation were Keywords: Facebook.
Formal Instruction.
Facilitating.
ESL Writing.
Productive Skill
INTRODUCTION
In recent times.
Facebook as a social media has achieved highest level of momentum due to its easy user-friendliness.
Many studies show that the substantial number of Facebook users is the students.
To be more specific, college students out number students of other institutions in terms of using social networking sites like Facebook.
MySpace, and search engines (Rhoades et al.
the same connection.
Hoover .
points out those new intakes at a higher education institute often use Facebook.
To quantify the number of Facebook accounts.
Kolek and Saunders .
have opined that the students from public university are in peak of having According to AuFacebook StatisticsAy .
85% of four-year university students use Facebook, many of whom do so daily .
omScore, 2.
Facebook and social network sites in general have become an integral part of teenage and adult social life.
Even, one teenager said you are no more existing if you arenAot in the social network .
oyd, 1 2007, p.
It is found that college students socially AuexistAy on Facebook but far fewer ESL learners are present (Mitchell.
It may be important for ESL learners and instructors to include Facebook in their learning and teaching process as it can undertake their jobs effectively.
Since the learners of this world canAot ignore or shouldnAot dodge the influence of social networking sites from their life, itAos better to embrace it for the sake of using it as a Through International Journal of Language Education.
Vol.
3 No.
October 2019 pp.
diversification, the ESL writing instructors can make Facebook a formal instructional environment for their learners.
The number of impacts it carries for both leaners and teachers outweigh the challenges it offers.
Moreover, it even is considered as a ground of sharing knowledge (Huang et al.
and important communication skills (Decarie, 2.
, as it provokes and influences learners to reach out and develop relationships (Neibling, 2.
Social networks distinctively generate very effective possibilities as cultural interventions for the learners (Christie and Bloustien.
For the young people virtual worlds appear as sites of significant cultural and textual relevance (Carrington and Hodgetts, 2.
, as social networks also helps them to know and respect each otherAosAo cultures (Birky and Collins, 2.
Furthermore.
Cho .
found that the collectivistic society maintain very close social networks and excessive interactions with others reduced the anxiety related to adjusting in a new place or to deal with the stress given by a new university course.
As learners come in a course from numerous cultures they inherit some sort of distinctive cultural inflections, the interactions in social networks help eclipse those inhibitions.
Interaction with others makes them more confident in terms of improving their inter-personal skills and conclusively helps perform better for any new course (Ryan et al.
Bowers-Campbell .
believes this widely accepted social networking site could help learners with low self-efficacy by increasing communications with the instructor and classmates, and provide clear instructions to the learners in how to responsibly use it.
Facebook influences all levels of academic activities (Bugeja, 2.
and academic settings (Villano, 2.
by offering exiting common ground for learning something new for both educators and students (Couros, 2.
, it can be effective if is used properly for academic purpose (Boon and Sinclair.
Facebook also can become a valuable resource to support students' educational communications and collaborations with faculty (Roblyer et al.
, as it can provide LITERATURE REVIEW Research on ESL studentsAo use of Social networking sites for learning their ESL writing is new though it is found that they use Facebook, one of the most common sites, for their personal reasons.
The striking reason why learners enlist their other mates on Facebook is their pre-existing friendships (Choi, 2006.
Ellison et al.
, 2.
and it benefits them to socialize in their personal lives (Boyd, 2007.
Choi, 2006.
Ellison et al.
Common tendency among the learners is to accept Facebook as social technology rather using it as a formal teaching tool.
They feel comfortable with using it to communicate with others, posting their images to seek like and comments but show reluctance using it for educational purposes (Selwyn and Grant ,2.
Madge.
Meek.
Wellens and Hooley .
categorize this social media as a via in helping learners to settle into university life.
Newly enrolled learners in the university struggle to make friends and find a suitable residence to live.
In this connection.
Facebook helps them to know each other easily and they also can request others to help them.
Also.
Facebook is heavily used when the informal communication is sought.
Students specially use it to communicate their family members and friends (Subrahmanyam et al.
Pempek et al.
notes that Facebook was used most often for social communication within the community.
Madge et al.
claim pre-registration at a Facebook university network site has very influential connection to students' postregistration social networks.
it helps specifically new students to make friends and keep in touch with their family members.
Md.
Zahangir Alam.
Farhana Binte Mizan.
Facebook as a Formal InstructionalA a different model of how online tools can be utilized in educational contexts (Downes.
Moreover.
Blankenship .
describes how social media impacts higher education vis-a-vis five interconnected "literacies," which includes attention.
Interestingly.
Violino .
states that school administrators believe social networking promotes achievement on campus as it creates broader sense of community.
A countless number of studies have demonstrated that learners use social networking site like Facebook for their personal reasons.
Learners use it to communicate their family members and friends, settle down in the university life, build up rapports with their teachers, share knowledge and ideas, know cultures of other friends, put comments and likes on others account though very little is known how effective Facebook can be for learning ESL Considering the above studies, it is seen Facebook also has values for language learners but any literature is missing when it comes specifically ESL writing.
All in all, researchers agree on a point that this adds value to the learners Aosocial life in the university but all express caution about its potential in using for learning and teaching ESL writing.
Participant Selection All the students of three sections participated in this study as Md.
Zahangir Alam, first author of this paper, was the instructor of this writing course.
There were 96 students total in three different sections and the aim of the study was to find out what they thought about the including of Facebook in their learning process.
I created three Facebook groups for three different sections, and involved the students for some guided Students were given writing activities, guidelines and sometimes sample answers and they were asked to produce similar type of writing.
Many times.
I posted a show movie cliff and they were putting their own opinions to write a complete review of that and same was true for book review.
Students were allowed to give feedback to their peers and they even could add Research Instruments The data were collected using a questionnaire and face-to-face interviews.
The questionnaire consisted of five main parts comprising 15 close ended questions where the participants put tick mark on the correct Data analysis tool MS Excel was used for analyzing the data gathered from this questionnaire.
The frequencies and percentages were calculated with the Aocountif Ao function of Excel.
The interviews arenAot put with the result abut included in the discussion section which largely enlarge on the earlier responses to the questionnaire items.
METHODOLOGY
Context In this study we used participants from Asian University of Bangladesh during four months undergraduate course entitled AoIntensive English Language: WritingAo in the spring of This course is listed in the catalog as IEL: 1004 which is offered to the students of first semester.
This is a mandatory first semester course and the students are taught basic writing skills such as movie review, book review, paragraph writing, formal and informal writing and so on.
RESULTS
In this section, all the questions are categorized under five dimensions which are as follows:
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Usage of Facebook Before and After The Course It is evident from the survey that most of the students .
= 87.
625%) were signed up on Facebook before the course.
Nearly .
=9.
10%) learners didnAot have Facebook account or didnAot log on it before they enrolled in this course which is quite surprising in the age science and technology.
In that four months, only over one-third of the students used Facebook almost every day .
= 33.
4%).
However, after the students got enrolled in the course, they began using it more frequently than before .
ne or more times a day: n = 39.
63%).
communicate their friends easily.
However, almost the equal number of students, who found it effective, failed to decide whether or not this form of social media could add any value for teaching this productive skill .
= .
Surprisingly, many learners casted their opinion in favor of using Facebook for other courses .
= 57.
4%).
Motivation and Facebook as a Formal Instructional Environment The figure for this dimension is very More than half .
=54.
25%) of the students expressed that they felt low while they were commented and criticized based on their L2 writing posts on Facebook.
They sometimes failed to appreciate their friendsAo comments which were pretty negatives.
TeachersAo negative feedback didnAot inspire them either to advance their learning.
At the same time, less than half of the learners .
=42, 43.
was never demotivated for any type of comment either from teacher or friends that shows their intensity as learners.
Students were extremely satisfied when they received positive comments and feedbacks from their peers or teachers on their writing .
=85.
51%).
StudentsAo Feelings About The Learning Content A significant number of the learners said that they would have preferred a face-to-face course in terms of L2 writing to a Facebookbased instruction .
= 42, 43.
6%) and a high number of learners dropped hints that they thought that Facebook should only be one of the elements in the teaching and learning .
= 75%).
They had very strong reservation against the absence of teachers in their learning process.
They expected more involvement of the teacher for any sort of learning progress.
The observed responses hinted that most of the students were intrinsically reluctant to approach for the information and communication technology based ESL writing class.
However, their responses showed that Facebook could be used to aid learning for L2 writing in formal contexts .
= 81.
and that mentioned social network based work with proper instructions and feedback was found very effective approach .
= 60.
5%).
A larger figure of learners expressed that they could share any information related to their class and university on Facebook .
= 7%) which they believed helped to motivate them in their learning L2 writing .
= 63.
7%) as they it assisted them to Learners and TeachersAo Rapport More than half of the students expressed that it was quite appropriate for an instructor to use Facebook .
= 66.
100%) and the figure is overly high when it comes for socialization .
= 87.
6%).
Only .
=9.
4%) students had reservations against the usage of Facebook to create social interactions.
Consequently, some learners .
= 21.
have highlighted the dark side of Facebook that teachers sometimes post personal pictures and information on Facebook which distract learners from their responsibility though many .
=51.
1%) didnAot appreciate the opinions which go against Facebook.
At the end of the course students found that this form of social media brought success to have good Md.
Zahangir Alam.
Farhana Binte Mizan.
Facebook as a Formal InstructionalA communication with their teachers .
= 87.
6%) and that they were intrinsically motivated when the teacher commented in the form of feedback or comment on their mandatory postings .
= 20.
5%).
By the end of the course, nearly all the students .
=80.
33%) showed interest to be the Facebook friend of their teachers.
A fraction of students .
=16.
67%) were reluctant to add their teacher in the Facebook friend list.
better L2 writer.
This pressing situation often made them hesitant about receiving Facebook as a formal instructional environment for learning the mentioned They could post their writings anytime they preferred and received comments from their professors and peers which abetted them immediately assess their learning growth.
However, learners largely tend to feel this social network to use as means of communication and a platform of sharing their ideas but the learning point is questionable.
Intrinsically, the learners feel there must be teachers for any sort of learning outcome.
n In terms of received feedback from instructor and peers, the study shows mixed results.
The common tendency among the students observed is that they are reluctant to receive negative feedback and they expressed it demotivated them to keep the tempo of Learning L2 writing.
Also, there were learners who could carry on even if they received negative feedback.
This happened due to their dynamism and learning intensity as an ESL writing However, almost all the learners are happy if they are given positive comments which is pretty natural as human beings love to be appreciated rather being n Facebook helps learners and teachers build up good rapport and excitingly not many hold reservations against this view.
Students can communicate to their instructors whenever they feel and teachers can do the same.
However, it also distracts learners from their original purpose as they get to be busy with focusing the personal pictures of their teacher.
Students show tendency to put likes and comments on their teacherAos any picture or Facebook post to draw attention.
Assistance of Facebook on Making Friends Almost all the students believed .
=90.
75%) found Facebook useful to keep each other in teach during the course and only .
=6, 6.
75%) showed their negative opinions against Facebook.
In one interesting point, it is found that over half of them ( n=57.
in boxed other friends in the list to know about them better.
DISCUSSION