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 to 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 least from classmates. Comments on ideas written by students will enhance students’ critical thinking and argumentative writing skills. Augmented by technology, entries in a journal can enjoy more readerships and interaction level can be increased.