TASK 2 - ARTICLE REVIEW

Title: VOICE BLOG: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF LANGUAGE LEARNING.

Citation: Sun,Yu-Chih. (2009). VOICE BLOG: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF LANGUAGE LEARNING. Language Learning & Technology, 13(2), 88-103. Retrieved July 21,2009, from Language Learning & Technology – a refereed journal for second and foreign language educators: http://llt.msu.edu/vol13num2/sun.pdf

Journal Volume : Language Learning and Technology June 2009, Volume 13, Number 2 (page 88-103)

Author’s Name : Associate Professor Yu-Chih Sun is an associate professor at the Institue of teaching English to Speaker of Other Languages at the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. She is active in conducting researches concerning education which include computer-assisted language learning (CALL), academic writing, as well as speech instruction.

The research aims to provide a foundation in the aspect of both theoretical and pedagogical in order to produce the idea that widely practice on blogs can contribute to the primary part of instruction, and that blogs allow students to structure their thoughts and to ensure that they are publically available which is less likely to be possible in other media.

The research used two data collection procedures which are a survey of student attitudes towards the use of voice blogs and retrospective interviews with students. The survey is a voice-blog survey that consisted of 45 items, the five-point Likert scale were applied, and included three subcategories;(a) learners’ perceived gains in speaking skills (7 items),(b) self-reported learning processes and learning strategies (18 items), and (c) the learners’ attitudes toward the class blog (20 items). Participants were asked to rate their agreement on the scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = undecided, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree). However, for the interview 12 students were selected based on certain characteristics such as gender, major, year of study, blog performance, and course grade. The rationale for the interview was to gather information regarding four major areas; (a) students’ learning processes in relation to the blogs, (b) related learning strategies, (c) difficulties encountered, and (d) solutions to those difficulties.

The subjects or the participants for this study were 46 students in Taiwan in two oral communication classes taught by the teacher-researcher, 31 of them were male students while the other 15 were female students.

The results of the survey found that on average, each student spent approximately 209–1,254 minutes in total working on the blogs over the course of the semester. The researcher also identified the five blogging stages and strategies developed by the learners, and the process is recursive. The five blogging stages included; 1) conceptualizing, 2) brainstorming, 3) articulation, 4) monitoring, and 5) evaluating. Conceptualizing involves the planning on the blog content, gathering information about the topic, and preparing themselves on the pattern of discourse. Brainstorming includes drills, finding and constructing words and phrases to assist the proper expression of meanings and the sequence of speech. Articulation involves the process of rehearsing and recording their blog entries. Monitoring refers to making sure both linguistic quality and content of their speech to be proper. Evaluating means to identify mistakes and to self-correct them. The finding on their perceptions of usefulness of blogs showed that they believe that the voice blog help them to enhance their speaking skills, their self-expression, their method of exchanging information, as well as social networking. Thus, we can conclude that the findings suggest that blogs can constitute a dynamic forum that fosters extensive practice, learning motivation, authorship, and development of learning strategies.

The research does interest me and I personally that it is quite a well-conducted research. The researcher did not utterly rely on the voice blog survey but also did the interview with a number of students to strengthen the results found. As for the implications in the general Malaysian teaching and learning context, I believe that Taiwanese students learn English as their second language and so does Malaysian. Thus, both experience the factors that may hinder the effectiveness of the second language acquisition process, for instance, language ego and inhibitions. In order to make them practise the language and improve it as well, such possible way which is through voice blogging should be suggested to be included as part of instructional method. I really think this is how we can implicate the research findings in Malaysia. Moreover, the use of voice blogs, according to the researcher, is found to be the best way for all the students to be able to interact in English language and to improve it too. This is important for the Malaysians as they tend to face the language ego factor and inhibitions because our society tend to be so clingy to our mother tongue that people are discouraged and demotivated to practise the second language.

CALL in READING - Hypertext

NELSON MANDELA

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 18, 1918. His father was Chief Henry Mandela of the Tembu Tribe. Mandela himself was educated at University College of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand and qualified in law in 1942. He joined the African National Congress in 1944 and was engaged in resistance against the ruling National Party's apartheid policies after 1948. He went on trial for treason in 1956-1961 and was acquitted in 1961.

After the banning of the ANC in 1960, Nelson Mandela argued for the setting up of a military wing within the ANC. In June 1961, the ANC executive considered his proposal on the use of violent tactics and agreed that those members who wished to involve themselves in Mandela's campaign would not be stopped from doing so by the ANC. This led to the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and sentenced to five years' imprisonment with hard labour. In 1963, when many fellow leaders of the ANC and the Umkhonto we Sizwe were arrested, Mandela was brought to stand trial with them for plotting to overthrow the government by violence. His statement from the dock received considerable international publicity. On June 12, 1964, eight of the accused, including Mandela, were sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1964 to 1982, he was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town; thereafter, he was at Pollsmoor Prison, nearby on the mainland.

During his years in prison, Nelson Mandela's reputation grew steadily. He was widely accepted as the most significant black leader in South Africa and became a potent symbol of resistance as the anti-apartheid movement gathered strength. He consistently refused to compromise his political position to obtain his freedom.

Nelson Mandela was released on February 11, 1990. After his release, he plunged himself wholeheartedly into his life's work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after the organization had been banned in 1960, Mandela was elected President of the ANC while his lifelong friend and colleague, Oliver Tambo, became the organisation's National Chairperson.