Since 1998, weblogs (or “blogs”) have gained increasing notice in the cyberspace community,
more and more foreign educators have applied this user-friendly technology to classroom
instruction and language learning (Campbell, 2003; Johnson, 2004); however, it seems that
relatively few English teachers have ever used blogs in an EFL writing class around us. Although
not originally created for use in language education, blogs have formidable potentials as a useful
tool for the teaching of EFL writing class.
In a short blog posting titled “Do weblogs improve writing?” Bernstein (2004) advocated
“Frequent writing improves writing”, “Writing for an audience improves writing”, “Writing that
matters improves writing”, and “Writing on a computer improves writing”. However, to EFL
learners, frequent writing may not necessarily improve writing. Nevertheless, it will definitely be
helpful if students do not only write frequently but also look up English dictionaries or use
Internet to help them express their ideas clearly and correctly. EFL learners’ writings will be
more or less influenced by their first language. The improvement of writing will be questioned if
EFL students write English frequently but present their thoughts with the style of their first
language. And some students answer that they will look up an English dictionary or ask someone
.