Volume 2, Issue 1 December 2020, pp. 36–50 
Regular Articles
Impact of using blogs on summary writing skills of EFL university students
Mashael Alqahtani1, & Sultan Altalhab2
1 Kind Saud University, SAUDI ARABIA 
2 Kind Saud University, SAUDI ARABIA
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29140/tltl.v2n1.317
Abstract
This study examines the impact of using blogs on developing students’ summary writing skills and the perceptions of Saudi undergraduate EFL students on using blogs in developing their summary writing skills. The study participants comprised 20 female students, and the data were drawn from pre/post-tests and a questionnaire. The results revealed that blogs are an effective tool that positively impacts learners’ summary writing skills. Moreover, most participants showed positive attitudes towards using blogs in EFL writing; they perceived blogging as a helpful tool that increases motivation and interest to learn, fosters autonomous learning and critical thinking, improves collaboration skills, and provides powerful feedback. Furthermore, the participants reported many benefits of this blogging project: improving learners’ English language skills, facilitating collaboration among students, saving time, developing summary writing skills, and ease of use. However, some participants mentioned drawbacks such as the difficulty of using blogs and the lack of peer comments. Further, some found blogging to be time-consuming. Overall, the benefits of blogging outperformed the drawbacks, demonstrating that blogs are a beneficial and effective tool for EFL learning and teaching; they can improve student writing skills in general and summary writing skills in particular.
Copyright
© Mashael Alqahtani, Sultan Altalhab
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Suggested citation
Alqahtani, M., & Altalhab, S. (2020). Impact of using blogs on summary writing skills of EFL university students. Technology in Language Teaching and Learning, 2(1), 36–50. https://doi.org/10.29140/tltl.v2n1.317
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