The Impacts Of Online Writing On Efl Jordanian Students' Writing Proficiency And Their Perceptions Of It

Abstract

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students embarking on a tertiary education and pursuing any degree programmes are required to do a lot of serious academic writing in English. However, writing is one of the most difficult skills to master and naturally it is much more challenging and taxing for EFL learners. With the advancement of technology, writing online such as on Facebook and Twitter has become a trendy pastime for the world population. Regardless of its many benefits such as more practice, exposure and real time audience, this writing fascination fails to win the hearts of many EFL teachers as many reportedly argue that online tasks promote lackadaisical attitude and carelessness among students. Hence, EFL teachers remain loyal to the traditional writing practices in class. This study draws upon the theories on learning and motivation and argues that the improvement in language performance or lack of it is highly influenced by the time to write, real audience and constructive feedbacks all of which could reduce writing anxiety that is the delimiting factor in EFL classrooms. The study employs a quasi-experimental design in which 90 participants were selected purposively from Al-Husain University Jordan. They were divided into two equal groups, experimental group and control group, with 45 participants per group. Participants were introduced to one of the online writing platforms which in the study were Edmodo. They were taught to use the tools in Edmodo and later write English essays on them and submit online. Their essays were available for others to read. The data were collected through quantitative and qualitative instruments which included pre and post writing tests, survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.