The Effects of Using Blogs to Develop the Writing Skill in the EFL Classroom

Abstract

Developing written proficiency seems to be a challenge for students of English as a foreign language today in part because teachers and students have not paid special attention to this important area of English during the learning process. Unfortunately, the traditional methodologies that have been used in recent years do not help students in the writing process, resulting in a low level of writing by students. For this reason, this research synthesis aims to analyze the effects of the use of blogs on the development of the writing ability of students of English as a foreign language. For this purpose, 15 research papers with a quantitative, qualitative, quasi-experimental and mixed method approach were selected and analyzed to determine if the impact of the implementation of blogs in the classroom is positive or negative for students. The findings reveal that (1) the use of blogs greatly contributes to the development of the Writing skill and that (2) students consider that the implementation of blogs has helped them to improve their writing, and to continue enhancing their Writing skill, they would choose to continue using blogs because it is a modern resource that makes use of digital resources.