INTERACTIVE WRITING (1st Draft. Pls Comment)

Interactive Writing[i]
By
Ghazali Bunari[ii] and Abdul Rahim Salam[iii]
Journal writing activity has long been used by teachers to improve students’ skills in writing. It is also a way for students to communicate with the teacher and vice-versa. This workshop demonstrates how interactivity in the traditional journal writing activity can be extended. Participants will be exposed to a pen-and-paper interactive writing technique and this is followed by an online version of the activity. The workshop explains the benefits of online journal or weblog implementation in ELT. The workshop also suggests variants of the activity and outlines the procedures for implementing the technique.

Outline
1. Language Learning Theories
2. Interactivity
3. Weblog
4. How to

INTRODUCTION
In order to successfully learn a language, a learner needs to use the target language. For most English language learners in Malaysia, situations that call for the need to use the language are often limited to the classroom environment. One might have the opportunity to use English only in the English period, and more recently the mathematic and science periods. More often than not, the only one who is willingly communicating with the learners in English is the teacher. As there is only one teacher for each class at every period, the opportunity to learn the language is greatly reduced. This calls for the need for techniques that encourage more interaction in the target language.

INTERACTIVE PERSPECTIVE IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION
When people exchange messages with others, they interact among themselves. Brown (2001) writes interaction as collaborative exchange of thoughts and feelings or ideas between two or more people, leading to a reciprocal impact on each other. Burnett and Marshall (2003) define interactivity as a term to describe interaction between parties where both sources and receivers of information through a communication medium. It is a sequence of action and reaction. They further indicate that interactivity describes the extent to which messages are related to each other.

Interactional view of the nature language sees language as a tool for the realization of interpersonal relations and for the performance of social transactions between individuals (Richards and Rodgers, 2001). It is through interaction, students can use the language learnt in real-life exchanges as they send and receive messages in a casual manner. Thus, Brown (2001) argues that language classrooms should be interactive. One way to increase interactivity is to increase the audience of written works done by students. Perhaps, by giving access to others to read students’ written works and react on them, interactivity will increase.

JOURNAL WRITING
Journal Writing has long been used in the language classroom as a tool to enhance learning. Teachers can use journal writing to meet specific goals. Some teachers use journal writing to improve writing confidence and some work on perfecting paragraphing skills; others use journals as a platform to nurture students’ creativity. Some teachers provide title prompts to assist students begin their entries. Others leave decisions about the content and topic of student journals up to the students. The technique was traditionally a non- interactive activity. It is, if implemented traditionally, writing for the audience of one, the writer himself (self-writing). However, a dialogue or buddy journal in which a student records feelings and opinions and a peer or instructor reads and responds can be interactive. Increasing the number of audience and responses to a single journal entry can intensify the interaction.

Journal writing has been adapted as a learning tool because it lends itself well to heuristic learning approach. Kerka (1996) presented in her literature review that journal writing has several benefits to teaching and learning:
1. Writing journal entries is less formal and less threatening, thus students can write without self-consciousness or inhibition
2. Journal entries can provide tangible evidence of mental processes. They make thoughts visible and concrete, giving a way to interact with, elaborate on, and expand ideas.
3. Journals are tools for growth through critical reflection, for it is not enough to observe and record experiences, but equally significant is to make meaning out of them.

Nevertheless due to time constraint, the primary audience of a student’s journal is restricted to the instructor. It would be beneficial for the learning process if journal entries can be published and received feedback from the public or at lease from classmates. Comments on ideas written by a student would mature students’ critical thinking and enhance argumentative writing skills. Augmented by technology, entries in a journal can enjoy more readerships and interaction can be enhanced.

INTERACTIVE WRITING
The Internet has converted many people to become prolific writers. “It’s easy to communicate across continents that people – who perhaps did not write regularly before – are now finding they correspond daily with friends, relations, business contacts, and strangers.” (p.6, Dorner, 2002) Technology has now allowed journal writing to be done on the web. This medium is known as weblog. Weblog is defined as:

“A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically—like a what's new page or a journal. The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly—from links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea, to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction.” (Pyra Labs, 2000)

Weblog puts the latest entry always on the top and the older ones fall into archives. Most weblogs allow visitors or readers to interact with the entries by providing a comment form. Before easy- to-use template based weblog writing service like Blogger.com and Livejournal.com in 1999, only those who were good with html code can maintain a weblog. Now, even those who do not know html can publish their entries and update their journal everyday. They just need to fill in a form to sign up for the free weblog service and log in every time they need to update their journal. All they need is a web browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape) and a computer that is linked to the Internet. Free weblog service providers such as Blogger.com, Blogdrive.com and Livejournal.com have made it easier for non-IT individuals to publish journal entries and readers at large give feedback to entries posted on the weblog. For tech-savvy individuals, they might want to tinker with free open source software like Wordpress and Greymatter.

Weblogs provide interactivity needed to help students to use English by increasing the number of participants that can get involved in a discourse. As writers and readers, students could interact with the teacher, fellow classmates and the whole world. This also gives students the opportunity to even interact with native speakers of the target language. Entries are published for the world to read and react to. Readers of weblogs post comments in reply to entries often lead to negotiations of meaning that might assist learners in developing writing and argumentative skills. The use of English language can be taken outside the four walls of the classroom and beyond. It is hoped that teachers and students can embrace the technology available and turn it to something pedagogically constructive. Blood (2002) wrote in her article, “I strongly believe in the power of weblogs to transform both writers and readers from “audience” to “public” and from “consumer” to “creator.”” Maybe, we are at the edge of a new revolution of interactive writing culture that calls for the voice of masses.

PROCEDURES
In 2001, an interactive writing project was introduced in UTM via a weblog named Gameplan (http://gameplan.blogspot.com/), a shared weblog that acts as a learning journal. The Students involved in this project were students who registered for Language Games in the Classroom course, an elective course for TESL students at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. The main purpose of the interactive writing project was to update class members on the progress of the class Language Camp projects.

In the weblog, the students reflected on works related to their class projects. Mostly, the students posted informal reports of what they had contributed to their class Language Camp projects. The students had to post a minimum of five one-hundred-words entries on the weblog. The marks were given based on the completion of task and the amount of comments made by readers on the entries. Students were encouraged to read each other’s entries and give comments. At the same time, they were also allowed to promote their weblog in order to attract public comments.

The weblog empowered students to publish their thoughts for the whole world to read. The instructor understood the students better because they interacted beyond the boundary of the classroom setting. Project members immediately addressed problems expressed by others in the weblog. Classmates and public readers were presented with true anecdotes and witty commentaries. Students started to grow awareness of the audiences (instructor, classmate and the world) when writing.
Few students were discovered to set their own weblog and continue updating their weblog even though the semester is over. New students taking the course could immediately read last semesters’ entries for reference. This gives evidence that weblog writing can provide a sustainable learning experience.

SUGGESTIONS
The pre-requisites to the adaptation of weblog into the classroom are ample ICT infrastructure on-site and sound pedagogical techniques. Soon all schools will be equipped with Internet ready computers and teachers can start being creative and think about how computers can enrich the learning experiences of the students. Weblog can be used as a training platform for students to show their skills in creating web contents. School newsletters can now be made available online via weblog.

Class Weblog / Webzine
Language: Stating facts, opinions and feelings
Skills: Writing
Control: Free
Level: Intermediate/advanced
Time: Asynchronous project, preferably running throughout the whole year. It is best to start the project in the first month of an academic year.
Materials: Internet Access

Preparation:
Asked students to visit some weblogs and leave comments on those weblogs.
Train students to setup a weblog account via Blogger.com service.
Discuss the ethic of publishing writing online with the participating students.

Procedure
Each student writes a short article (100-200 words) a month and posts it on the class weblog.
Students should also read postings made by others and write at least 5 sentence comments.
Topics should be limited to reflection of events related to their school.
At the end of the year, best writer awards are given based on the number of comments received by their postings.

Variations
Instead of sharing one weblog, each student can own an individual weblog. He or she can reflect on events that happen around himself/herself.
Select some good articles from the weblog. Edit them so that they can be published on the school annual magazine.

Links
Free Hosted Weblog Service
Blogger: http://www.blogger.com/
Livejournal: http://www.livejournal.com/
Blogdrive: http://www.blogdrive.com/
Diaryland: http://www.diaryland.com/

ELT Weblogs
Blog-EFL: http://blog-efl.blogspot.com/
Englishblog: http://englishblog.blogspot.com/

Class Weblogs
Gameplan: http://gameplan.blogspot.com/
Damien TESL UTM: http://damienteslutm2004.blogspot.com/
Let’s Blog: http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/school/blog7.htm

REFERENCES
Brown, H. Douglas (2001) Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Addison Wesley Longman Inc. New York.
Blood, Rebecca (2002) Weblogs: A History and Perspective. We’ve Got Blog. Perseus Publishing. Cambridge.
Burnett, Robert and Marshall, P. David (2003) Web Theory: An Introduction. Routledge. London.
Dorner, Jane (2002) Writing for the Internet. Oxford University Press. New York
Kerka, Sandra (1996). Journal Writing and Adult Learning. ERIC Digests No. 174. ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult Career and Vocational Education. Columbus Ohio.
Pyra Labs [Online] (2000). ‘About’ : http://www.blogger.com/about.pyra [19/02/2002.]
Richards, Jack. C and Rodgers, Theodore S. (2001) Approches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
[i] This paper is prepared for 4th ELT Southern Regional Seminar 2004. The seminar was organized by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Jabatan Pendidikan Negeri Johor 25 September 2004.
[ii] Ghazali Bunari is a lecturer affiliated with the Faculty of Management and Human Resource Development. Currently, he is teaching English for Academic Communication and Language Games in the Classroom. He received his first degree in Applied English Linguistics at The Universiti of Texas and masters degree in TESL at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
[iii] Abdul Rahim is a lecturer affiliated with the Faculty of Management and Human Resource Development. Currently, he is teaching English for Academic Communication. He received his first degree in TESL at Universiti Malaya and masters degree in TESL at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.