Advantages and disadvantages of a tutor blog and Facebook group for teaching English language

Advantages and disadvantages of a tutor blog and Facebook group for teaching English language:

Internet has become an increasingly important feature of the learning environment for students. Internet applications respond to students and other people questions in real time. Students are seeing Google as a new Teacher and the Internet as a school. There are so many different tools and technologies available on the internet today, and so many associated terms and concepts. Most of the students are familiar with “Facebook” and “Blog” in this technological era. Facebook is commonly used by the students all over the world.

Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. The site is available in 37 different languages. Facebook was originally designed for college students in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg while he was studying at Harvard University.

A blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete and often informal in writing. Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. There are three types of blogs for use in language classes. These are:

1.     The Tutor Blog

2.     The Class Blog

3.     The Learner Blog

The Tutor Blog is run by the teacher of a class. The content of this type of blog can be limited to syllabus, course information, homework, assignments, etc. Or the teacher may choose to write about his or her life, sharing reflections about the local culture, target culture and language to stimulate online and in-class discussion. In this type of blog, students are normally restricted to being able to write comments to the teacher's posts.

Bloggers and many other regular Internet users are well aware of Blogs and Facebook. In addition, interested learners should be aware of sites like Blog and Facebook, where users can quickly and easily create their own blogs for free.

However, Tutor Blog and Facebook Group are very helpful in learning and teaching English language.

Advantages and disadvantages of Tutor Blog:

·        Tutor blog helps the students to improve their critical thinking skills.

·        Tutor blog connects students and teacher instantly. This helps the students to solve any new problems with the help of their teacher in learning.

·        As tutor Blog is run by the teacher, so the teacher can easily provide instruction and lesson to the students for their better understanding.

·        Blogging makes learning easier. It keeps students in a track of learning so that they are always in search of interesting and new topic to explore and learn.

·        To explore tutor blog students do not need to have any ID in blog. They can see it from any internet enabled device.

·        Tutor blog provides reading practices to the students to improve their vocabulary and communication skills.

·        Tutor blog often may discourage learners to communicate face-to-face with the teachers in the classroom.

·        Unstable internet connection may discourage students to learn from tutor blog.

·        Lack of IT knowledge of the teacher may lead the students in a wrong direction.

Advantages and disadvantages of Facebook Group:

·        Teacher or class representative can create a Facebook group and invite students to join to use it for academic purposes.

·        Students are often very enthusiastic about social media like Facebook, thus important notice or posts about lesson in the group will not be missed by the students.

·        Again, group admin or group members can tag students in posts or comment section, so that the members will not miss any update about their lesson.

·        Students who are in confusion with any particular topic, they can seek help any time from the other members of the group. As a result, wide range of discussion takes place about particular or different topic.

·        Teacher or members of the group can share lesson related documents, picture and video with each other. Thus, Facebook groups encourage students to help each other in their lesson.

·         Facebook groups is perhaps the most powerful social influence from their peers. Whenever a student writes a strong answer or asks a good question, it inspires other students to rise to that level.

·         But, most of the time young students are more interested about socializing and making friends rather than searching for educational topic.

·         Students may waste their time instead of doing discussion in the group.

·         Class 8 students of Bangladesh often do not get permission from their parents to use Facebook, thus it is not much popular in Bangladeshi context.

·         Unnecessary or irrelevant posts can hamper the concentration of the students, that it could feel like spam.