Nowadays, English learning has become
important with the development of world and technology. A social networking
service (SNS) is an online medium which is used to establish social networks or
social relations among individuals. Most people prefer to use this service
because it allows them to share opinions, interests, activities and event
within their individual networks and this can be done in various ways such as
e-mail or instant massaging. Moreover, Internet technology has created online
learning environment that enable the virtual learning session between the
students. Among various kinds of social networking services, the most widely
used worldwide are Facebook and Twitter. There are a lot of advantages and
disadvantages that can be finding in integrating social networking tools into
EFL writing classroom.
The advantages of using this
networking tool in ESL writing classroom is that it provide large amount of
information to the students and broaden the students’ knowledge about the
learning process. Furthermore, the using of Facebook gives opportunity to the
students to publish their interest and activities which they can share it among
their friends. Moreover, the comment that their friends post at the Facebook
can motivate them and build their confident to share their works too. The
Facebook actually can cultivate students brainstorming ability especially when
they follow the online discussion which involve larger audience from all around
the world because by doing so they are exposed to different culture and views
about certain things which they are not familiar with.
Besides that, Facebook also allow
multimedia interaction where the students can share the links, videos and
pictures to make the learning environment more interesting. Moreover, by using
all the features provided and publishing the post, the students can improve
their writing skills and their creative thinking skills as well. Apart from
that, it also give advantages to teacher as they able to save the students work
anytime they want whereas for parents who are busy, they also can view their
children development through those networking services without have to see the
teachers to ask about their children. We cannot dent that; social networking
tool does give convenient to students, teachers and parents.
Other than that, there are also some
disadvantages of integrating social networking into ESL writing classroom where
in order to use this networking services, it needs computer and internet to be
carried out. Moreover, not all school able to provide technological devices for
the students to excess the internet. Furthermore, social networking services
are very popular in serving entertainment and this can cause distraction to the
process of learning. As we all know, the students also tend to ‘copy and paste’
and even lying in doing their tasks because some of them like to find an easier
way to finish their task and sometime the information that they get from the
networking tools are not guarantee accurate. Apart from that, some students
also find it is hard for them to study in virtual form and they prefer study
using books. Besides that, when using this networking services the students
also like to use short form which will develop informal writing during the
exam.
In a nutshell, I agree that
integrating social networking into ESL writing classroom provide a comfortable
and convenient environment of learning process as it can be carried out anytime
and anywhere without need to meet at a specific date and place. But at the same
time, I also disagree as the process of learning only can be carried out when
there is computer and internet excess. So, here we can see that there are
advantages and disadvantages in using this social networking tool and teachers
play an important role in planning and choosing right strategies in conducting
the learning process so that both teachers and students will gain benefits.
