Exploring Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions of and Attitudes Towards the use of Blogs for English Writing Skills at a Vietnamese University

VNU Journal of Science: Education Research, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2020) 36-49 
36 
Original Article 
Exploring Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions 
of and Attitudes Towards the use of Blogs 
for English Writing Skills at a Vietnamese University 
Nguyen Thanh Mai1,*, Dat Bao2 
1School of Foreign Languages, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, 
No.1 Dai Co Viet, Hai Ba Trung, Hanoi, Vietnam 
2Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia 
Received 04 April 2020 
Revised 13 April 2020; Accepted 13 April 2020 
Abstract: The study aimed at finding out: i) the attitudes of both teachers and students at a 
Vietnamese university as regards the integration of blogs into English writing classes; and ii) their 
perceived advantages and difficulties in adopting such a way of teaching and learning. Data was 
collected in two stages: a preliminary questionnaire survey with 110 students and 12 teachers of 
EFL (English as a Foreign Language) writing, and follow-up interviews with 07 participants, both 
teachers and students. Findings indicated participants generally held a positive attitude toward the 
integration of blogs into EFL writing curriculum. Significant benefits in adopting a blogging 
approach included teachers’ and students’ access to computer and the Internet, their ability to 
handle blog-related technical issues, and their awareness of the possible benefits of a blog-
integrated curriculum. However, the current limited use of blogs for practicing English writing at 
the institution as well as students’ willingness to post their writings and give feedback on a public 
page were among the major obstacles. The study was concluded by some important pedagogical 
implications for the realization of a blog integrated EFL writing curriculum in Vietnam. 
Keywords: Blogs, blogging approach, blog-integrated curriculum, EFL writing, Vietnamese university. 
1. Introduction * 
The innovation of Information and 
Communications Technologies (ICTs) over the 
past decades has brought about intensive 
_______ 
* Corresponding author. 
 E-mail address: mai.nguyenthanh@hust.edu.vn 
 https://doi.org/10.25073/2588-1159/vnuer.4402 
changes in roughly every aspect of our modern 
life and has prompted education to search for 
ways to successfully integrate technological 
advances into its curricula. Up to now, a 
multitude of studies worldwide have been 
conducted on the integration of blogs, an 
application of web 2.0, into language teaching 
and learning. Specifically, the positive 
outcomes of contemporary [1-4] have 
N.T. Mai, D. Bao / VNU Journal of Science: Education Research, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2020) 36-49 
37 
strengthened educational practitioners’ belief on 
the use of blogs as a high-yielding tool in 
foreign language teaching and learning. 
The worldwide influence of ICT 
innovation, to some extent, has raised 
Vietnamese educational researchers’ awareness 
of the necessity to speed up ICT integration in 
education and training, yet research into the 
employment of ICTs for academic purposes in 
general is still in its early stages, not to mention 
the specific area of English language teaching 
(ELT). The first and very few studies targeting 
ICT applications in ELT in Vietnam included 
those carried out by Nguyen [5, 6], which 
discussed technology-enhanced EFL (English 
as a Foreign Language) syllabus design and 
materials development, and Dang & Robertson 
[7-9] which studied EFL students’ autonomy 
and e-behaviours through their participation in a 
web 2.0 Moodle site. However, available 
studies have not yet specifically addressed the 
use of blogs in the teaching and learning of EFL 
writing at tertiary level. 
The study, therefore, aims to explore the 
attitudes and perceptions of teachers and 
students at one of the public universities in 
Vietnam regarding the integration of blogs into 
English writing curriculum. The two major 
research questions include: 
i) What are teachers’ and students’ general 
attitude towards the use of blogs in English 
writing classes at the university? 
ii) What are the possible advantages and 
difficulties in adopting this way of teaching and 
learning English writing skills? 
2. Literature Review 
2.1. Benefits of a blogging approach in the 
teaching and learning of writing skills 
2.1.1. Blogging improves language writing 
performance 
Studies on the influences of blogging on 
language writing have concluded that blogs can 
facilitate and enhance the instruction of 
academic writing [10], resulting in greater 
improvement in students’ writing performance 
compared to mere in-class writing instructions 
[11, 12]. From a quantitative point of view, 
Mompean [13] noted that “the number of 
contributions was quite satisfactory as the 
students posted more messages than the number 
originally required and this can be interpreted 
as a sign of involvement in the project” (p.389). 
Also through blogging, language learners 
further develop their intercultural competence 
[3], activeness in reading [14], vocabulary base 
and background information of the foreign 
language [15], and most importantly, writing 
fluency [2, 16]. 
Because of the asynchronous nature of 
blogs, students have more time to reflect on the 
content and write without any time pressure 
[17]. That explains why there tends to be more 
open and better expression of self among online 
learners than when they are on the more 
traditional pen-and-paper mode [18]. Another 
reason for students’ personal development in 
writing has been attributed to the meaningful 
and diverse interactions that they are involved 
in while participating in blog activities [3]. 
2.1.2. Blogging fosters language learners’ 
understanding and personal growth 
The construction of weblog broadens the 
context of classroom interactions [19] by 
minimizing the limitations of time and space 
[20], therefore enco ... udy has shed 
some light into the possibility of employing 
blogs in the teaching and learning of EFL 
writing at tertiary level in Vietnam. Basically, 
EFL teachers and students at the researched 
institution expressed a welcoming attitude 
towards the employment of blogs in the 
teaching and learning of writing skills. 
Participants were also able to point out 
important benefits of the blog-integrated 
approach over the traditional offline way of 
teaching. A variety of possible blog activities 
enable access to multiple input channels [41]. 
At the same time, the frequent and meaningful 
interactions on blogs offer a wider range of 
audience for students to write to [20], foster a 
stronger sense of community among 
participants [49], and result in better error 
correction and mutual learning. Furthermore, 
the number of teachers and students having 
access to the necessary facilities for blogging 
accounts for a large proportion of participants, 
meaning a greater chance for a blog-integrated 
curriculum to be realized. 
However, the study did come up with some 
important pedagogical implications for any blog 
integrated foreign language writing curriculum 
at tertiary institutions in Vietnam. First, the 
general decline in blog use due to different 
challenges and changes in the trend of using 
ICTs at the institution is happening and 
inevitably influencing the choice of which blog-
integrated models to adopt. Rather than rigidly 
holding on to a design that features only blog, 
teachers may consider a combination of blog 
and other web 2.0 applications including 
Facebook, wikis, and podcast [54, 59, 61] so as 
to achieve the desired effectiveness in teaching 
and learning EFL writing. 
Second, the specific limitation in employing 
blogs for English writing purpose, in which 
participants mainly generated blog entries in 
their mother tongue for recreational purposes, 
supposedly originates from mismatching 
teachers’ and students’ expectations of writing 
activities outside the language classroom. 
While teachers assume that writing on blogs 
should be done autonomously, most students 
insist on being provided with more guidance, 
support and even supervision from their 
teachers. This fact highlights a need to treat 
blog as an organized activity that serves 
the curriculum. 
Acknowledgements 
The authors would like to express sincere 
thanks to the leaderships and colleagues at the 
two institutions, especially Dr. Raqib 
Chowdhury (Faculty of Education, Monash 
University), for the valuable support and 
helpful comments throughout the study. 
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