The Effectiveness of Blog Use on Attitudes towards Reading by Learners of Turkish as a Foreign Language

In our age, in which the world is digitalized day by day, it is inevitable to see the reflections of technological developments in the field of education. Since traditional foreign language teaching methods are inadequate to meet the communication and technology needs of modern education system, technology supported foreign language teaching materials and learning environments and new approaches and methods have to be developed. It is thought that the creation of learning environments supported by technology within the classroom and outside the classroom is considered to provide numerous benefits in the education world where lifelong learning skills are discussed. The interactive language learning environments needed by the "Generation Z" students, known for their indulgence in technology, are emerging as blogs, also known as "web diaries", when the technological opportunities they have are taken into consideration. This study investigates the effectiveness of a blog-based out-of-class learning environment on the attitudes of Turkish as a foreign language students towards reading. The study was conducted with the participation of 52 foreign students learning Turkish in B2 level. Within the scope of this eight-week planned study, a blog page was designed by the researcher and the prepared content was applied as an extracurricular activity. In order to determine the students' attitudes towards reading, the data obtained by applying reading attitude scale before and after the study were analyzed by quantitative methods. The results of showed that there was a significant positive change in the students' attitudes towards reading by the end of the study