The Effectiveness Of Using Online Forums And Blogs For Promoting Writing Performance Of Omani Learners

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dc.contributor.authorJayaron Jose
dc.date.accessioned2016-11-25T01:44:40Z
dc.date.available2016-11-25T01:44:40Z
dc.date.issued2016-06
dc.description.abstractThe study on the effectiveness in using forums and blogs for promoting the writing performance of Omani EFL learners was planned and executed because of the learners’ increased use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) especially for their academic and social needs. The researcher, therefore, felt the need to examine the effects of ICT tools in facilitating English language learning through the use of online forum discussions and blogs as a result of reviewing relevant literatures. Two main research questions were formed to carry out the experimental study with 28 participants in the forum treatment and another 28 participants in the blog treatment before the post-test was administered. The research questions are: 1) Are there any significant differences within and between the written language produced by the forum group and the written language produced by the blog group in terms of linguistic quantity, accuracy, complexity and cohesiveness? and 2) what are the perceptions of the participants toward methods of writing through blogs and forums? The second question is for the qualitative data collection, analysis and interpretation. The analysis of post-test data for the forum and the blog (between the groups design) found that there is statistically significant difference between some of the forum variables and the blog variables such as number of clauses, accuracy, conjunctive adverbs, subordinate conjunctions and cohesive devices; on the other hand, there is no statistically significant difference between the variables such as the number of words, number of language units, syntactic complexity, lexical diversity, lexical density and the total number of coordinate-subordinate conjunctions. The data analysis found that both the treatments had a statistically significant effect on the EFL writing output of Omani learners in terms of all variables of the study with the probability of p = .05. The qualitative data collection through interviews and their analysis found five leading criteria such as EFL writing and error correction, acceptance of forums and blogs as new writing tools, collaborative and autonomous learning, electronic vs. paper-and-pencil writing, and challenges and difficulties. In short, findings of the forum and the blog interview data are similar. However, the forum treatment has shown better EFL written output than the blog treatment. To conclude, the research found that the forum and the blog are two important ICT tools that can be integrated into EFL learners’ teaching and learning practices especially in relation to writing. The study implies that EFL teaching and learning can be facilitated through ICT tools, and there is a need for the stakeholders to create and implement policies about it through effective ICT infrastructure, maintenance, training and research.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/123456789/3218
dc.subjectEnglish language learning through the use of online forum discussions and blogsen_US
dc.subjectas a result of reviewing relevant literatures.en_US
dc.titleThe Effectiveness Of Using Online Forums And Blogs For Promoting Writing Performance Of Omani Learnersen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
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