Efl learners' perception of blended writing class: Blog and face to face

The purpose of this study was to investigate student perception of blended writing classes. The study was conducted with 55 intermediate level EFL learners from two different writing classes in the preparatory school at Anadolu University. Data was collected by means of students? written reflections at three different phases. The first reflection was about their writing class experience during the first term and this was used to state the problem. The second set of reflections was written throughout the blended writing process. The last reflections written by the students were upon the completion of the study. These reflections were lead by means of open-ended questions about the medium, writing practices, journals, homework and visual aids. Although in their first reflections the majority of the students stated that they perceive writing class negatively, their perceptions were positive in the second and third reflections after they experienced the blended writing class. The results of the data analysis indicated that blended writing class was very supportive to create a positive attitude towards writing lessons as 94 % of the communication units in the second reflections and 99 % of the communication units in third reflections were positive about blended writing. Moreover, students? second and third reflections indicated that the online platform provided opportunities for reflective thinking skills, personal enjoyment, academic development, authentic language exposure, up-to-dateness, authenticity in purpose and audience, variety of visual aids, extended interaction, learner responsibility, and learner centeredness. As a result, the findings in this research offer some insights for course and task design, in order to build up a bridge between the classroom practices and the real life, which will be leading to a meaningful and from-life authenticity based classroom practices.