.: Weblogs vs Message Board :.

Salam..

Both materials can be very useful teaching aids for teachers as they offer different advantages for language learning. In my opinion, to decide which one is suitable for teaching English as second language in Malaysian secondary schools depends on students’ differences and preferences. Teachers have to examine their students’ level of proficiency first before deciding which way is suitable. Referring to own experiences and articles read, using weblogs seems to be more suitable regardless to wide gap of students’ level of proficiency. It is believed that weblogs can benefit every levels of proficiency as long as teachers carefully design the lesson or task to be given to students through weblogs. The reason is weblogs are more systematic as it is arranged chronologically and controlled by teachers of respective group members in terms of the order of works in certain timeline as well as pollution control.

Teachers can utilize weblogs with every language skills namely reading, speaking, writing and listening. With hyperlink features, teachers can upload new entry in weblogs according to the objectives of the lesson and ask students to answer by posting on the comment part. For example, teachers upload one story and ask few comprehension questions or giving unfinished story and ask students to write the ending of the story for writing exercise. In addition, this way of learning is more familiar to Malaysian students’ attitude as only few of them will prefer and actively post new topics as what message board operating.