Blogging about The Covid-19 Pandemic in EFL Writing Courses

| ABSTRACT This study aims to find out whether EFL instructors at Saudi universities use blogs; whether EFL students blog about themes related to the Covid-19 Pandemic in EFL course; to show EFL instructors how a class blog can be used to blog about the Covid19 Pandemic and to give examples of topics related to the Covid-19 Pandemic that can be utilized in blogging activities. Results of surveys showed that EFL instructors do not use blogs in their EFL courses and do not blog about the Covid-19 Pandemic in their writing courses. Therefore, this study presents a model for blogging about the Covid-19 Pandemic in EFL writing courses. Topics about the Covid-19 Pandemic are characterized by being current, familiar, tangible, specific and widespread. The students will have no problem in generating ideas and will only need to focus on organizing ideas, and linguistic aspects. A class blog can be selected and used as a supplement to in-class EFL writing instruction for freshman students. The students can search for articles, photos, or videos related to the Covid-19 topic assigned and write a short paragraph or s summary of the article or video and posted in the blog. They post questions, comments, reactions and feedback on their classmates’ blogposts’ form and content. The instructor serves as a facilitator while the students are blogging. She encourages the students to write and interact. The article ends with some recommendations for expanding the blogging activity of EFL students in writing courses.


Introduction
Blogs are important for technologists, teachers, parents, researchers, and professionals who are interested in computer-mediated communication. As of 2021, there are 1.86 billion websites and more than 570 million blogs on the internet, based on activities reported by WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, Wix, Squarespace, and Medium (and this number is constantly growing. In 2020, there was 31.7 million bloggers in the United States 1 . A blog (weblog or web log) is a website consisting of entries (posts) with the most recent entry appearing first. Blogs are created using specific publishing software. They typically include comments, but links, pdf, doc, ppt, xls files, images, and videos can be also uploaded. There are several types of blogs: (i) Personal blogs which are an ongoing online diary or commentary written by an individual; (ii) Collaborative blogs or group blogs written and published by more than one author. They are based around a single uniting theme, such as technology, politics, education, or advocacy; (iii) Microblogging i.e., posting small (short) pieces of digital content such as text, links, pictures, short videos, or other media on the Internet; (iv) Corporate and organizational blogs used for non-profit organization, business, or governmental purposes. They are used internally and are only available to members or employees; (v) Aggregated blogs that include selected feeds on specific topics, services or products and provide a combined view for their readers; (vi) Reverse blogs composed of several contributing authors on a topic, rather than a single blogger. They are open for anyone to write. Most blogs are mainly textual. Some focus on videos (video blogs or "vlogs"), music (MP3 blogs), photographs (photoblogs), or art (art blogs); others are audio blogs (podcasts). Blogs can be classified by the media type used: vlog (video blog), linklog (links), sketchblog (portfolio of sketches), photoblog (photos), and tumblelogs (shorter posts and mixed media). They can be classified by genre or subject such as health, travel, politics, journalism, (travelogs), education, psychology, sociology, legal (blawgs), house, books, gardening, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, party, weddings, photography, projects, niche, classical music, quizzing, or dreamlogs and how-to/Tutorial blogs. Finally, blogs can be classified by device such as mobile blogs that are written by a mobile phone using a blog app (moblog). In education, blogs (edublogs) can be used as instructional resources.

Literature Review
Due to the popularity of blogs in educational settings, a review of the literature has shown a plethora of studies that investigated the utilization of blogs in education in general and language learning, particularly writing instruction. In Malaysia, students enrolled in a life science course used blogs as an online portfolio, where they shared their experiences and posted writing assignments based on the lessons studies and discussions held in the course (Gedera, 2012). In Iran, a blog-buddy system was used by undergraduate students learning English for engineering purposes. The activity resulted in a significant improvement in students' writing performance. Students who received feedback from blog-buddies showed higher positive attitudes toward utilizing blogs in writing classes. The blog-buddy system also fostered students' control of their learning experiences (Asoodar, Atai & Vaezi, 2016). In a third study, students of Spanish as a Foreign Language at the University of Queensland, Australia and students of English as a Foreign Language at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain participated in a bilingual blog. This learnerdirected instructional context allowed intercultural and "language" exchanges between the Australian and Spanish students, filled in the students' language and cultural gaps, served as a peer revision exercise, as a collaborative work and as a discussion platform in the blog (Garcia-Sanchez & Rojas-Lizana, 2012).
In most studies in the literature, most students had a positive attitude towards using blogs in learning English and practicing writing. Use of blogs and web resources by EFL or ESP college students in several countries such as Saudi Arabia, USA, Australia, Taiwan, Spain, Iran, Malaysia, Vietnam, Columbia, Iran, and Turkey enhanced students' autonomous learning awareness, helped with the self-learning process, learning others' ideas, expressing themselves better than class practice, understanding the linguistic topics better, engaging in online exchanges, promoting learner autonomy, enhancing students' motivation, promoting peer feedback, facilitating effective writing instruction and improving writing skills (Sütçü, (Aljumah, 2012;Gunduz, 2016). The students share their entries with their classmates, develop collaboration skills, individual voices, and responsibility for their writing (Roy, 2016). In addition, they develop interpretive and critical thinking skills. They write their views at their own convenience without time and space constraints (Vurdien, 2012). The interactive features of weblogs help establish a valid peer review culture as an integral part of collaborative writing. The students also develop the ability to identify the target audience (Grami, 2012). Freshman students share their blog entries during their oral communication classes. They interact with their peers by simply reading and commenting on each other's blog posts (Gunduz, 2016).
In addition, blogs engage EFL learners in reflective and collaborative learning. Personal blogs motivate students to work on their writing skills through peer feedback and self-reflection. The students become more careful with planning their writing tasks and correcting their errors before posting their work. They support learner-centered interactive learning and constructivist environments considerably. The comments that students post on each other's blogs and the feedback they give and receive from their peers have a crucial role in the language learning process ( Students' regular interaction in blogs fosters collaborative skills. For example, international freshman students at a Midwestern university in the USA submitted reflections as journal/blog posts and commented on their classmates' reflections. Although the students faced linguistic challenges in writing the journal/blog posts, their collaborative reflection and learning were accomplished through their comments, which showed support for each other, encouragement, and advice on how to deal with their weaknesses (Thomas, 2017).
Likewise, a blog-mediated writing project between two colleges served as a peer collaboration platform, and a mediating tool for teachers to offer timely feedback or prompt student idea exchanges. Feedback was categorized into task, process, self-regulation, superficial praise and mediative feedback. The findings illustrate the evolution of feedback provisions and reduction of superficial comments during online writing tasks (Chen, 2014) Vietnamese second-year English major students posted their writings in blogs and gave and received suggestions for revision through blog comments from classmates. Although the comments on global areas were greater than those on local areas, the revision-related comments were not guaranteed to be greater in the global area. The total revisions made in the blog posts during peer responses were greater than the total comments on revisions. In addition, revisions at the "word" and "phrase" levels needed less help from classmates than those at the "sentence" and "paragraph" levels (Pham & Usaha, 2016).
Furthermore, mobile blogs encourage interaction and create a sense of community among learners outside formal educational settings and in different locations. The students engage with the foreign culture by capturing, sharing, and reflecting on their experiences with their peers. Similarly, blogging in language and IT courses maximizes students' collaborative writing, creates a sense of community, promotes interactive and reflective learning among the students as part of the collaborative group learning ( Although students in prior studies blogged about a variety of topics such as engineering, linguistics, life science, general topics, English language teaching, communicative writing in the social media, reflection in an ELT practicum, genre-based process-writing (travel blogs), advanced academic writing, and keeping an online journal, there is lack of studies that train students to blog about the Covid-19 pandemic in EFL writing courses. No studies were found in the literature that integrate themes about the Covid-19 Pandemic in EFL/ESL writing instruction. Therefore, this study aims to find out whether EFL instructors at Saudi universities use blogs in their EFL courses; whether they integrate themes about the Covid-19 Pandemic in their EFL instruction; whether their students use blogs to write about Covid-19 Pandemic topics; to show EFL instructors how a class blog can be used to blog about the Covid-19 Pandemic and distance learning (DL) in the past two years; give examples of topics related to the Covid-19 Pandemic that can be utilized for the blogging activities by EFL college students; describe the instructional phases with blogs; and the instructor's role during the blogging activity.
This study is significant for both EFL instructors and students in Saudi Arabia especially in the distance learning environment. Results of surveys showed that 55% of EFL college students and instructors in Saudi Arabia were unhappy with distance learning. The students did not understand the online material, did not participate in online discussions, were not interested in doing assignments. The students complained of lack of interaction and communication with their classmates and instructors. The instructors were frustrated because they did not know how to engage the students when they were online, how to motivate students (Al-Jarf, 2021b). In addition, writing in English is always a chore for EFL students in Saudi Arabia (Al-Jarf, 2004). So using blogs in EFL instruction and blogging about the Covid-19 Pandemic, which all the students are experiencing, would be the perfect solution for engaging, motivating, and communicating with students and increasing interaction and collaboration among the students, as revealed by prior studies in the literature.

Participants
A total of 45 instructors from language, translation, linguistics, and literature departments at five Saudi universities (King Saud University, King Abdul-Aziz University, King Khalid University, Princess Noura University, and Imam University) participated in the study. The instructors have a Ph.D. and/or an M.A. degree and teach different English language courses, especially writing courses. They have varying degrees of teaching experience.

Instrument
To find out whether EFL instructors in the sample use blogs in teaching EFL courses to students, whether they integrate themes about the Covid-19 Pandemic in any English language courses they teach to EFL college students, and whether they use blogs to write about the Covid-19 Pandemic, a survey with open-ended questions was developed and administered to all 45 instructors via WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. The questions asked the instructors whether they use blogs especially in DL during the Pandemic, whether they integrate themes about the Covid-19 Pandemic in the listening, speaking, reading, writing or vocabulary courses. They asked them to give examples of themes related to the Covid-19 Pandemic or students' experience with distance education during the Pandemic in the first two years and give a reason why they have or have not utilized bogs and themes about the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Data analysis
Instructors' responses were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The percentage of instructors who have and those who have not used blogs in their courses and have or have not integrated any themes related to the Covid-19 Pandemic in their EFL courses.

Results
Responses to the survey showed that all instructors in the sample do not use blogs in their EFL courses. They just use a platform such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Blackboard and others for delivering the lecture and discussing assignments. They have not integrated any topics related to the Covid-19 Pandemic in the listening, speaking, reading, writing or vocabulary courses they teach. They do not know how to integrate topics related to the Pandemic in EFL instruction. They believe that topics related to Covid-19 and DL are difficult for students to talk, read or write about. They abide by the topics in the assigned textbooks. They do not use blogs because that would put an extra burden on them in reading, correcting errors, and responding to every student in their classes.

Creating a Class Blog
A blogging website can be selected from the following: Blackboard LMS, Sharepoint, or King Saud University faculty websites (fac.ksu.edu.sa). Instructors can also choose a free blog to use from www.freespot.com such as Blogger, Ghost, Joomla, Medium, Tumblr, Wix, Yola; WordPress.com, https://edublogs.org, https://education.weebly.com. Students can also use a mobile blog. A class blog can be created and used as a supplement to in-class EFL instruction. It can be used for extensive writing activities by EFL freshman students.

Selecting The Covid-19 Pandemic Writing Topics
Topics related to the Covid-19 Pandemic are current, familiar, tangible, specific and widespread. They are related to what students watch on TV, or on YouTube and what they read on social media. The students will be able to generate ideas and they only have to focus on paragraph structure, organizing ideas, sentence structure, vocabulary selection, and mechanics. A chosen topic can be personalized by having the students write about their views, experience, and reactions. Divide broad topics into specific ones. Their paragraph may include a definition; what happened, when, where, why, how; results of. The instructor can select and assign topics about the Covid-19 Pandemic and/or DL like those in Table 1.

Instructional Phases With Blogs
According to Al-Jarf (2005a), EFL writing instruction using blogs goes through three phases. In Pre-task Phase, the instructor introduces the students to the class blog, describes the components of a blog and explains how it is used. She tells the students what they will be doing with the blog, the rules of using the blog, and how the blogging activity will be performed (individually, in pairs or in small groups). Every week or so, she assigns a topic related to the Covid-19 Pandemic, or DL to be brainstormed at home or in class. The students can search the internet or any other source for articles, photos, statistics, or videos related to the topic and conduct some interviews and write a short paragraph that describes the photo, summarizes the content of the video, article, or interview and comment on the statistics. They should give the source of their information. The instructor gives clear, direct, and specific instructions for writing and posting paragraphs such as giving the paragraph a title, starting a new blog for each new topic, posting questions, comments and reactions about the blog topic, topic sentence, the details, cohesion, coherence, word choice, grammatical structures, especially tenses that should be used. Below is an example of writing instructions: In the Task Phase (during the class session), the students brainstorm the topic individually, in pairs or small groups by asking "what, who, whom, where, why, how, when" on the topic. Vocabulary items, grammatical structures, or functions related to the Covid-19 topic, that the students need to use to express themselves can be given and explained briefly. After brainstorming, the students start writing a thesis statement for their multi-paragraphs or a topic sentence for a single paragraph. Then they make a list of points or details related to the thesis statement or topic sentence. A time limit is always set for writing and posting the topic on the blog. Students are encouraged to write for communication and not to worry about spelling and grammatical mistakes. At this stage, focus should be on ideas, making them relevant, clear, and specific, connected and organized. The students may write their posts and revise at home and post them in the blog later. They may also write their reaction to the topic, post comments and questions for feedback in or out of class. Others answer the questions, give feedback, and comment on the posts and errors.
In the Post-task Phase, the students correct the finished posts or paragraphs. Focus should be on ideas and information, i.e., the topic sentence and supporting details and making sure the paragraph is cohesive and coherent, and that ideas are relevant, concrete, specific, clear, and detailed. One or two types of grammatical errors may be identified and corrected by classmates each time a topic is assigned as it is impossible for the students to conceptualize and correct all types of spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors. The instructor comments on few common weaknesses and gives feedback on areas of improvement. If a task is difficult, additional examples of the same type are given and practiced. For the next class or next week's task, she assigns a new topic related to Covid-19 and gives instructions to help the students brainstorm prior to posting in the blog.

Instructor's Role
The instructor serves as a facilitator. She can select the writing topic and encourage the students to choose any theme that they like about the Covid-19 Pandemic. They can also keep a diary of their daily experience with Covid-19, the lockdown, or DL. When students work in teams, she rotates and re-assigns members of each team for each assignment so that each student has a chance to work, collaborate and interact with different members. She moderates the discussion and comments. She encourages the students to interact and write comments. She responds to writing problems, provides help and answers questions. She gives a deadline for posting paragraph in the blog. No assignments should be accepted after the deadline. Study skills and selfimprovement tips and websites are posted. Links to reading material or YouTube videos are also posted. She teaches students about copyright issues. The instructor should always thank the students for their efforts and can give marks for participating in each blog topic regardless of its quality to encourage the students to write.

Recommendations
Since blogging takes time, effort, and skill, and to make the best use of blogs the current study recommends the following:  Instructors should choose a good blog design. They should break broad topics into smaller ones by giving examples or cases. Teacher's guidance is necessary at every stage. The instructors may share blogs and topics with their colleagues at their department or at other universities.
 The students can blog from home or classroom, i.e., synchronously, or asynchronously. They can blog from a laptop, iPad, tablet, or smart phone. They keep their blog posts short and to the point. They should not write too little or too much about a topic. They write as often as possible. They should make content easy and simple (Al-Jarf, 2020c).
 When selecting the Covid-19 topics, instructors can integrate participation goals that focus on students' involvement in the COVID-19 issues such as giving precautionary measures for people in the community, the school and university community to reduce the risk of catching the Omicron virus, helping with internet connectivity and instruction via the platform (Al-Jarf, 2021f).  Using Covid-19 linguistic landscapes such as street and shop signs, direction, warnings, and ads displayed in public spaces and writing a paragraph describing them (Al-Jarf, 2021h).
 To correct students' errors in the class blog, the instructor gives communicative feedback that focuses on meaning/ideaa and highlights only errors that are common among the group. She provides feedback on the location of errors, but no corrections are given. She encourages self-editing and peer-editing. Extra credit is given for good blogposts every time the students post a paragraph in the blog (Al-Jarf, 2021a; Al-Jarf, 2011; Al-Jarf, 2005b).
 The students can participate in project-based and problem-solving topics, hosting healthcare professional to talk about issues related to Covid-19 Pandemic and writing projects related to the Covid-19 Pandemic and DL and posting a report about their work in the class blog (Al-Jarf, 2021e; Al-Jarf, 2021f).  Integrating mobile audiobooks only, mobile audiobooks that combine reading and speaking activities and/or mobile audiobooks that combine listening and speaking activities which the students can use on their own at home, then perform some activities during the online class session such as summarizing the content, answering auditory comprehension questions, or reflecting on the story orally or in writing (Al-Jarf, 2021g).
 Students can collaborate with EFL students in some other countries, share a blog to build up a picture of the Covid-19's real situation, people infected with it, causes of the pandemic, prevention and treatment, and effects of the pandemic on people's daily life. Students and instructors from different backgrounds may enter into dialogue with each other using a blog to gain knowledge of the reality of Covid-19, and to critically reflect on the Pandemic (Al-Jarf, 2021c; Al-Jarf, 2020a).
 Encouraging the students to gather information to build up a picture around Covid-19's real situation, people infected with it, causes of the pandemic, prevention and treatment, and effects of the pandemic on people's daily life. The students can get up-to-date information on Covid-19 from multiple resources such as: World Health Organization and others, Council of Europe's Covid-19: Human rights are more important than ever in times of crisis (https://www.coe.int/ en/web/portal/ Covid-19), and University College Cork's response to Covid-19 (https://ucc.ie/en/emt/ covid19/), (Al-Jarf, 2021c). Furthermore, EFL instructors should take into consideration that use of blogs does not guarantee students' writing skill development. It all depends on how blogs are used, the kinds of tasks required, amount of writing, teacher's guidance, and encouragement.
Finally, instructors teaching different writing courses to students in different levels at the same department in Saudi Arabia can collaborate and share a blog to post paragraphs about the Covid-19 Pandemic and other global events. Using blogs in reading, speaking and translation courses and using social media such as Facebook to read and write about the Covid-19 pandemic are still open for further investigation in the future.
Funding: This research received no external funding. It was funded by the author.