Enjoyable Learning: Writing for Enjoyment through Web-Blog

In the globalization era, English and technology have become the important elements for human being. Technology and English should go hand in hand. People are asked to be able to utilize technology to support their life. Besides, high school students should be familiar to and know how to operate the Internet because they can get many helps from it, such as information about the hottest news in the world, information about their idol, and so on. Moreover, as we know that nowadays, English has become the international language that is used as a means of international communication by every country. That is why people are also demanded to master and use English to be able to survive in the modern community. As language learners, we have to acquire all the important skills in learning English, which are: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Most students think that the most difficult skill to be acquired is writing. Perhaps, it is because they have to produce something from their learning. They think that to organize and develop the ideas are really difficult to be done. They sometimes feel depressed when they have to make an essay. For instance, me myself, I think writing is actually hard, especially in finding the idea what I have to write. Because when I cannot find the idea or the topic that I am going to write, I cannot even start to make an essay. Another example is my friends in writing class, most of them also feel distressed when they are asked to make an essay by our lecturer. To solve these problems, teachers can try to apply an interesting and enjoyable way to develop students writing skill through web-blog in the Internet.

Before we go to further explanation, let us see the definition of writing and web-blog according to Longman Dictionary. Writing means the activity of creating or producing written texts such as stories, books, and so forth. Furthermore, the meaning of web-blog is that a web page containing information or opinion from a particular person or about a particular subject, to which new information is added regularly. In other words, we can say that a web-blog is like an electronic diary. Now, let me explain the process of making a web-blog and writing in it, which might be interesting for students to be conducted. There are three steps that have to be executed to make a web-blog and writings in it, which are making an e-mail account, making a blog account, and making a posting.

First thing first, before we make a blog, we need to make an e-mail account if we have not had it yet. We need to go online through a computer or laptop, make sure that we are connected to the Internet service. Open our web-browser such as Mozila Firefox, Opera, or other browsers that we have. Then, insert the address, in this case we can either open yahoo.com or gmail.com, by typing the name in the address tab and clicking enter. Wait for a moment to get the page loaded and click the sign up button. After that, start to insert all information that are needed in each tab, such as our name, gender, date of birth, address, name of e-mail address that we want, e-mail password, and finally insert the code that is given by the operator. Then, click Make an Account button and our e-mail account has been completed.

The second thing that we have to do is making the blog account. In the browser, we need to insert the address again. For this time, we can try either blogger.com or wordpress.com. Both of them are free charge, so that you do not have to be confused about payment. After inserting the address, do not forget to click enter button in our keyboard and wait for seconds. If we open the blogger page, click Get Started button and start typing information needed such as our e-mail address, e-mail password, password for our blog account, and insert the code that is given by the operator. Then, do not forget to click I agree tab and Continue button to go to the further process. The next process is making the identity of the blog. We can insert any information that we want for our blog such as our blog’s name, about us, even our blog’s type, and then click the Continue button to design our blog appearance. We can choose any templates that are provided by the operator and apply it to our blog appearance. By this process, our blog is ready to use.

The third step is making a posting in the web-blog. To make a writing in the web-blog, we have to log in first, insert our e-mail address and our blog password, and then press the enter button on the keyboard. Wait for a moment to load the page. After the page is fully loaded, click New Entry button on the page and start writing. Type the title of our writing in the title tab, and type our writing content in the body tab. After finishing writing, do not forget to give our posting a label to make it categorized and easier to identify, and then click Publish Now button. Our writing is finally published in our new web-blog. If we want to see how the face of our blogs with our new posting, we can click view my blog button.

From those processes, we know that actually making a blog is not difficult. Teachers can supervise the students’ blog every week. Students can write anything they want and in every two weeks, teachers give a particular topic to the students to be written by them. Besides, writing through web-blog is a good way to improve pupils’ writing skill, for it is interesting, enjoyable, and effective.

Writing a blog is interesting because students are able to design their own blog page and they have a chance to show who they really are. It has more aesthetic aspects since they can add several pictures, change the font color and type, add some videos that are related to the theme, and any other things. Students will be interested in it if it is compared to writing in Microsoft Word or on plain paper. If they are interested, they will have more eagerness to open their web-blog routinely and add some postings in it. Besides, they are not only able to open their own web-blog but also others’ web-blog. By this, they can compare their blogs with their friends’ work. They will feel challenged to make their blogs interesting by modifying it or adding some interesting postings. Thus, they will make writing regularly and by regular exercises, their writing skill will be improved.

Beside it is interesting, writing a blog is also enjoyable. Normally, if people consider something as interesting thing, they will enjoy doing it. For example, if we find an interesting movie, we will watch it until it ends and it is including in writing through blog. In the previous passage I have been explaining that students will write regularly because they find it is interesting and they might enjoy it. Since regular exercise is important for language learners, a blog is one of the ways to encourage them to write routinely. Moreover, people will do thing better when they feel enjoy since emotion can affect the work of people’s brain. If they feel bored when they write on plain paper, their ideas will be gone and they will be stuck. However, if they feel joyful and relaxed, their ideas can flow smoothly and they will be able to produce their work and their ability in writing will be increased gradually. In addition, teachers will give a particular topic only for every two weeks when they will review or give the correction to students’ writing. In other time, students are free to write interesting topics. It will make them enjoy and do not feel depressed because they can write everything that interests them.

The following is that writing through a blog is an effective way to improve students’ skill. When students write something in their blogs, it will be published throughout the world. People are free to access it. It means that, they will have a chance to get feedback not only from their teachers but also from their friends and other people in the world. From that feedback, they can try to make their writing better than before and they are encouraged to use the good grammar and good organization. It will improve their writing skill.

In brief, we can summarize that writing through web-blog is actually easy to be done due to the process of making a blog page. Moreover, it is also interesting, enjoyable, and effective way that can be implemented to improve high school students’ ability in writing. Therefore, teachers can try to start implementing it in their teaching method to make the students enjoy writing and able to follow the improvement of modern technology such as the Internet. 

Wahyu Kartika Wienanda