Web 2.0 And Its Role in ELL Academic Writing Development

Abstract

English has become the dominant global language in the academic community. In order to participate in such community, writer must have command of not only the typical conventions, but also have the confidence to write fluently and practice revision and collaboration. This review investigates the role in which Web 2.0 technologies, such as Facebook, blogs, and wikis, can play in supporting ELL students’ academic writing development. Upon a review of the literature, it became apparent that the use of Web 2.0 technology to develop ELL writing skills is particularly useful in terms of collaboration, revision, voice, and sense of writing community, as well as using peer review to strengthen understandings of complex syntactic structures and collocations.