Extensive Writing Activity through Journaling: Students’ voices

Abstract

Journal writing has long been used for various purposes in educational settings due to the many benefits it offers. Despite the numerous studies on the advantages of journal writing, little is documented about how this activity is viewed from students’ perspective. This study, therefore, explored how students’ view a one-semester long journaling activity that they did as out-of-class assignments. The participants were EFL students of a university in Indonesia. The findings derived from students’ written reflection and interview indicated that students perceived journaling a useful activity to help them improve their writing skills, build their writing habit and boost their confidence to write. They also reported that journaling served as a means to foster self-expression and promote students-teacher interaction. The study suggests that there are more benefits beyond writing improvement that can be gained from journaling and recommends that EFL teachers incorporate it in any writing instruction. Keywords—journaling; feedback; extensive writing