Texto III
Warnock (2009) stated that the first reason to
teach writing online is that the environment can be
purely textual. Students are in a rich, guided learning
environment in which they express themselves to a
varied audience with their written words. The
electronic communication tools allow students to write
to the teacher and to each other in ways that will open
up teaching and learning opportunities for everyone
involved. Besides, writing teachers have a unique
opportunity because writing-centered online courses
allow instructors and students to interact in ways
beyond content delivery. They allow students to build a community through electronic means. For students
whose options are limited, these electronic
communities can build the social and professional
connections that constitute some of education's real
value (Warnock, 2009).
Moreover, Melor (2007) pointed out that social
interaction technologies have great benefits for
lifelong education environments. The social
interaction can help enhancing the skills such as the
ability to search, to evaluate, to interact meaningfully
with tools, and so on. Education activities can usually
take place in the classroom which teacher and
students will face to face, but now, it can be carried out
through the social network technologies including
discussion and assessment. According to Kamarul
Kabilan, Norlida Ahmad and Zainol Abidin (2010),
using Facebook affects learner motivation and
strengthens students' social networking practices.
What is more, according to Munoz and Towner (2009),
Facebook also increases the level of web-based
interaction among both teacher-student and student-student. Facebook assists the teachers to connect
with their students outside of the classroom and
discuss about the assignments, classroom events
and useful links.
Hence, social networking services like Facebook
can be chosen as the platform to teach ESL writing.
Social networking services can contribute to
strengthen relationships among teachers as well as
between teachers and students. Besides, they can be
used for teachers and students to share the ideas, to
find the solutions and to hold an online forum when
necessary. Using social networking services have
more options than when using communication tools
which only have single function, such as instant
messaging or e-mail. The people can share interests,
post, upload variety kinds of media to social
networking services so that their friends could find
useful information (Wikipedia, 2010).
(Adapted from: YUNUS, M. D.; SALEHI, H.; CHENZI, C. English
Language Teaching; Vol. 5, No. 8; 2012.)
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