Abstract:
In today’s highly competitive world, gaining competency in a second language
is paramount for individuals since it has become one of the key elements of
surviving and thriving in the industrial arena. Writing is indubitably a vital skill
among the four basic skills that has to be mastered in the process of acquiring
the English language. Yet, merely writing essays or answering questions in
ESL classes does not facilitate the development of the learners’ writing skills in
the target language. Additionally, the Generation Z learners detest traditional
writing techniques and prefer techniques that are engulfed in modern
technology. Thus, this study was conducted with the aim of investigating
the efficacy of incorporating the Blog Writing technique to develop the
writing skills of the undergraduates of the Faculty of Animal Science and
Export Agriculture, Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka. The study was
conducted using a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative methods.
Primary data were retrieved via discussions, observations and unstructured
interviews of a random sample of 50 undergraduates, whereas the secondary
data were accumulated through previously published research in different
contexts, books, journals and scholarly articles. The research was carried out
for 15 weeks as the blog writing method was introduced and implemented
for the second-year students at the beginning of their academic semester
and the final formative assessment conducted at the end of the semester
was considered for the study to investigate the effectiveness of practicing
blog writing on their written skills. Apart from that, scripts produced at the
beginning of the semester were compared with that of the scores obtained at
the final formative written assessment to gain more insight. The findings of
this study indicate that the majority of students have exhibited improvement
in their writing tasks, while some undergraduates demonstrated a slight
improvement. Considering the results accumulated through the study, it has
become obvious that the implementation of the blog writing technique has
a considerable positive impact on enhancing the writing skills of the students
in ESL classrooms.
