Ramli
English Education Department, Universitas Borneo Tarakan [email protected]
Mitha Rahmawati Pellu
English Department, Universitas Bosowa [email protected]
Key Concept
Writing needs much time and ideas to produce a good writing.
The elements to assess writings include content or idea, form or organization, grammar, style, and mechanics (Sulisworo et al, 2016). One of the most complex human activities is writing because it involves the ideas, knowledges and experiences (Jozsef, 2001). Writing in English is difficult for students. Lack of knowledge and understanding about tenses, vocabularies and ideas can be the causes of the difficulty of students to write (Alsubaie, 2018). Moreover, teacher’s teaching method can be one of the students’ main reasons to have a lack of interest in writing. Lack of teacher’s background knowledge and teaching method error can be a difficulty on teaching and learning process (Anh & Thao, 2017). The use of different teaching methods and varied resources can help students reduce writing skills issues.
a. The urgency of argumentative writing
Writing is one of the English skills that must be possessed by all language learners. Writing skill needed by L2 learners on the study in the school and communication. Writing skill is necessary for the needs of the scientific community and become a special challenge for L2 learners (Baram-Tsabari & Rakedzon, 2016). Spoken language and written language used in different style to express people feeling because language is unique (Connelly & Dockrell, 2015). The skill can be used to help students understanding about how to develop ideas (Sampson et al, 2013). Writing is a combination of a process and product, so it is assumed as the most difficult skill.
There are four types of writing that can be used to express students’
opinion and knowledge on the writing process. They are expository, narrative, descriptive and persuasive or argumentative writing.
Expository writing is to the point and factual. Expository writing is devoid of descriptive detail and opinion (Ayob & Indrawati, 2018). This category of writing includes definitions, instructions, directions, and other basic comparisons and clarifications. Narrative writing tells a story which used for fictional stories, plays, or even a plot summary of a story your child has read or intends to write (Beutel & Spencer, 2012). Descriptive writing is used to explain and idea of picture, place, or person. Descriptive writing focuses on one subject and uses specific detail to describe it (Ginting, 2018). Persuasive or argumentative writing contains an explanation of the other point of view and uses facts, statistics, or both to disprove that view and support the writer’s position (Barone & Barone, 2018).
The learning of writing process will enable students to express their opinion better especially using the argumentative writing. Argumentative
argument and accepted by the readers (Beach & Doerr-Stevens, 2011:
Hardigree & Kibler, 2016). Furthermore, students have difficulty producing academic arguments in their required essays, because argumentative writing requires the writer take a stance. Argumentative writing is the act of forming reasons, making inductions, drawing conclusions, and applying them to the case in discussion (Wingate, 2012).
b. Technology and Writing Skill Development
Social network is a forum for communication, where students can interact with other people and hold real-time conversations for the purpose of language learning. Writing skill can be practiced at any time and place in different situations. Using social network on teaching and learning process help students to be active on the writing learning process (Alsamadani, 2017). Social network is frequent and habitual in students’
activities. Teaching of writing skills with technology makes the process easier and more enjoyable for students. Students are more enjoyable to applied knowledge of tenses, vocabularies and ideas development on writing using an online discussion (Krish, 2016).
Social network is different from more traditional forms of media, because instead of a message broadcasted in one to other mode it enables users to have peer to peer messages and engage and comment on the material (DeAndrea et al, 2012). This peer to peer contact enables more interesting experience for students to interact with information and provides a richer experience than traditional media. Students are able to invest more time and energy to interacting with the material and commenting, reshaping, and sharing the messages presented to students over social network (Kitchakarn, 2016).
The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education, including language teaching and learning, is a positive response to the development of the information and communication.
Although the Internet is a naturally motivating tool and many young learners are familiar with using information technology (Mersden, 2012).
An effective way of ICT in English language teaching classrooms depends on many factors. One of the important factors is the teacher’s knowledge and skills in using ICT in class. ICT is important for teachers to be active facilitators when the Internet is used for language learning (Peterson- Karlan, 2011). ICT is now becoming an essential part of everyday life of most people in the world. It plays an important role in education, having a special relevance in the instructional component, supported by Learning Management Systems (Idrus et al, 2016).
Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp are some social network that studens use. These applications used to share and write every moment.
Moreover, teachers can use it as the tools on teaching. The role of technology in teaching and learning process help students to be more enthusiastic in writing (Anggraeni, 2018). Moreover, Moodle, Ning and Google Docs are e-learning sites which used on learning process. The students can use the language learner inside the classroom in their real life using those sites and applications. Social network can be used to increase students’
engagement in teaching and learning process (Eaton, 2015).
Instagram can be used as a tool to enhance student engagement on teaching and learning process. Student can adopt online role to be engaged in collaborative arguments to argue on the photo posted. In 2010, instagram was developed, then become the most popular photo sharing application (Choo et al, 2015). Instagram is a superior application with
it becomes a useful social networking platform instantly to individuals and companies. Using instagram enables students to be more creative in thinking and developing idea. Instagram provides students with the opportunities to read and write through photo descriptions, comments and direct messages (Ayuni, 2017). Instagram has a pretty good role in improving student’s writing skill using descriptive and argumentative writing
Facebook is one of popular social networking sites which is mostly used by students. It allows students to share photographs and personal information and at the same time enable them to join groups of similar interests (Ibrahim et al, 2018). Facebook has become the most prominent social network among students and has potential for teaching and learning because Facebook facilitates community between teacher and students.
Facebook is an activity in which the students may work individually, in pairs or in groups of two or more students (Khusnita, 2017). Many researchers believe that Facebook has good potentiality to be utilized in a writing class. Furthermore, WhatsApp is a proprietary, cross platform instant messaging application for smart phones (Linda, 2018). Students are able to learn English faster, better and more fun by joining a WhatsApp group with fellow students and teachers. Students are able to read English and are obliged to answer in English which improves their English language skills (Fattah, 2015). Other than that, Moodle, Ning and Google Docs are networks are the online platforms that can be easily adapted and used by teacher on teaching and learning process.
Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is used for blended learning, distance education, flipped classroom and other e-learning projects in schools, universities, workplaces and other
educators create quality online courses with opportunities for dynamic interaction (Wu, 2008). The learning process seems to have been constructivist in nature since students found relevant information and put it together for a presentation on their websites (Wulandari, 2015).
Then, Ning provides more tools than a blog. It is a place where smaller groups of users can create their own profiles, upload videos and photos, and write their own blogs (Hamzah, 2013). Ning was free of charge, but there is a small monthly fee for a site with up to 150 members. A free alternative to Ning is Group which offers social networking tools similar to those provided by Ning (Boas, 2011). Moreover, Google Docs is one of the features of google. Google docs is free online and offline access.
Google Docs is a web-based free word processor and the instructors decide to utilize Google Docs as a tool of creating a web-based platform for submitting students’ writings and peer-editing (Jeong, 2016).
Technology into normal teaching practices, especially social network, focus on diverse issues. As Alsubaie (2018) said, the improvement of students’ writing skill after using blog can extend of their vocabulary size.
Furthermore, Sulisworo et al (2016) suggested that the uses of various learning strategies make students more creative and they can understand the new concepts that support the writing in the aspect of idea and various choices of words. As Sakkir et al (2016) said, students have positive perception on writing using social network but the lack of the facilities in the area can reduce the access of the network. As Bakeer (2018) suggested, ICTs and social media has positive effects in developing students’ writing skill. Moreover, Cahyono et al (2018) said that students’ ability on writing is better after the implementation of Instagram. As, Elhawwa (2017) stated that the successful use of e-learning platforms in the teaching and
about the tools, being aware of how they should be used and is capable of organizing all the communication process. Therewith, Fitrawati and Melitia (2018) said that students can interact and write together with other students in developing their writing by using Google Docs. They can give comments to other students and edit other students’ drafts in same time. It will help them to get more ideas in writing as they combine their ideas with the other.
c. Conclusion
The lack of writing practice makes students perform poorly in writing.
Many of them were also reluctant to write because they are bored and uninterested with the use of conventional media in the learning process.
Using social network as the tool on teaching and learning process is the best thing which is used by the teacher to improve student’s interest on the subject. Relate to the previous studies about writing skill using social network, those studies did not deeply examine about student writing skill using ICT as a media to improve students’ collaboration especially in argumentative writing. Therefore, the study of argumentative writing is still possibly conducted using any platforms to improve students’ ability to produce argumentative essay collaboratively.
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