Dialogue Journal Entries: Touching the Cognitive and Affective Skills
Henny Putri Saking Wijaya
Petra Christian University, Surabaya
EFL learners often dislike writing journal entries; as a result, they take this task as a burden.
Meanwhile, EFL writing teachers see this task as a medium to increase learners’ writing fluency.
Petra Christian University is attempting to apply the competency-based curriculum, in which teachers teach not only the cognitive skills but also the affective skills. In order to accommodate the curriculum in the teaching and learning process, dialogue journal entries can be a powerful tool to reinforce the learners’ cognitive and affective skills. These can make the learners enjoy writing and motivate them to improve themselves as language learners. Besides, this activity gives the opportunity for the teacher to involve in the learners’ writing process. The subjects of this activity were first-year and second-year learners of English Department who took Writing classes. This paper will discuss how journal entries can touch the learners’ cognitive and affective skills in an interesting way and how they benefit the learners.
Introduction
According to Tribble (1996: 83), “writing in a foreign language remains a challenging and complex task.” It happens because there is a difference between writing in the first language and in a second or foreign language. Writing in a foreign language requires learners to have background knowledge about the writing conventions of the foreign language. There are cases where the writing conventions of the foreign language are different from those of the first language. One of which happens to Indonesian learners. When writing in Indonesian, learners have a tendency to state their thoughts indirectly. This fact is supported by Kaplan (1966 cited in
Connor, 1996: 15) who states “essay written in Oriental languages use an indirect approach.”
Related to the style of presentation, Hinds (1990 cited in Connor, 1996: 20) mentions that “most
Asian favors a ‘quasi-inductive’ style of presentation” where the thesis statement is often buried in the passage. It can be at the beginning, at the end or in the middle of the essay. However, when writing in English, learners have to follow certain patterns in which they state their main ideas directly. In English composition main ideas are usually stated in the first sentence of each paragraph and followed by details or examples as the supporting ideas.
Moreover, rhetorical resources and language proficiency can be some of the barriers preventing
L2 learners from writing confidently and effectively. Silva (1993) did research about L1 and L2 writing. He analyzed 72 research reports comparing English as Second Language (ESL) writers to
Native English Speaking (NES) writers or comparing L1 and L2 writing. This research found that writing in a second language tends to be “more constrained, more difficult, and less effective” than writing in the first language (cited in Weigle, 2002: 35-36). Therefore, learners need more practices when writing in a foreign language.
In order to make learners get used to using English writing conventions and improving their writing fluency, EFL writing teachers give additional exercises or assignments. One of which is writing journal entries. However, EFL learners often dislike writing journal entries because they must do it every week. As a result, they take this task as a burden. They write the entries merely because the entries are counted in the grading system. They cannot enjoy this activity and cannot get the advantages of doing it. This phenomenon makes me change the feedback given in the
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entries. Instead of giving short feedbacks such as “great”, “interesting story”, or “it’s nice”, I have a dialogue with my learners in the journals. Therefore, the journal is called a dialogue journal.
Dialogue Journals
“Dialogue journals are essentially written conversations between a student and teacher, kept in a bound notebook or on a computer disks or file” (Jones, 1991: 3). There are rules to follow in dialogue journals. First, there is an interaction between the teacher and the learner individually. It means the teacher should “maintain confidentiality and privacy” (Peyton, 1991: 15). Everything written by the learners in the journal entries will not be shared with others. The teacher must assure this so that the learners can express freely what they think and feel. Moreover, there is equality in the conversations. This dialogue is “different from a traditional, hierarchical teacherstudent relationship” (Jones, 1991: 7). The relationship happening in dialogue journals is like two friends chatting together. The teacher should take a role as the learner’s peer. Besides the confidential and equal interactions, the focus of dialogue journal entries is on the writing fluency.
The teacher will not correct all the mistakes made by the learners so that they will not feel discouraged. Finally, the teacher must willingly spend more time to read and write in learner’s journals. This activity is effective in small classes. The teacher can know the problems encountered by each learner through their journals.
The Use of Dialogue Journals in Writing Classes
I used dialogue journals when I taught Writing class in the second and fourth semesters. Each class consists of approximately 20 learners. Unintentionally, some of the learners taking my writing class when they were in the second semester attended my writing class when they were in the fourth semester. The learners wrote the journal entries almost every week unless they had exams or assignments. They wrote their entries in a book and gave some spaces in the left margin so that I could write my comments. Before they wrote their journal, I asked whether they could accept grammatical corrections in their journals. Since all of them felt that they needed the corrections, they wrote their opinions every other line so that I could give feedback related to their grammatical mistakes. The format of a journal entry can be seen in the following example written by Jessica.
The element that made this activity interesting is the topic. I gave various topics to discuss in the journals such as current issues, academic life, and family. There were times when they could
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discuss topics which were interesting for them. They could choose current issues which caught their attention. This kind of topic made them think critically. What makes interesting was each student had different topic to discuss. The following excerpts are some samples of current issues written by the learners.
The current issue which is interesting for me is about the plant of parliaments who want to claim SLANK’s songs which is according to them humiliate them especially in the song “gossip jalanan” and “ujung-ujungnya duit. Parliaments think that
Slank’s song insult them …. (Marsella)
A couple, Mas’ud and Halimah, have 21 children. They are proud with their condition. They never feel ashamed to have 21 children. But different from their parents, their children are shame to have many brothers and sisters. … I think that it is not wise to have many children because it is hard to raise many children.
(Jonathan)
In addition, there were times when they could reflect what they had done in their life. The topics could be related to their subjects or life. Sometimes I sent some presentation slides which they had to read and share what they learnt from the slides. The example below shows part of the slides that the learners read.
The Most
The most selfish one letter word...........
The most satisfying two-letter word.......
The most poisonous three-letter word.....
"I" Avoid it.
"WE" Use it.
"EGO" Kill it.
The following is the excerpt taken from the journal when my student, Fransisca, discussed the above slides:
“I” is the most selfish one letter, especially if we work in a team when there is presentation about the assignment, we can not say “I”, we must use word “we” because not only one person who works in the team. Ego, everyone has his/her own ego, so we must know, we can not be egoist to another person.
The Benefits of Dialogue Journals
There are several justifications of using dialogue journals:

Changes in attitudes toward writing class
There are changes in attitudes shown by the learners dealing with writing class. At first, some of them did not like writing class because there were conventions they needed to follow when writing in English. However, at the end of the class the learners could enjoy their writing class. The following are some comments showing the changes:
On the first time, I think writing class is a difficult class because on that time my grammar was poor and I do not really like the previous writing class.
Especially when I had to make this journal every week. …As time goes by, I think I like this writing class and feel enjoy follow the class, because there is a good effect when I learnt writing. This journal is very useful for me, because now my writing is better than before and I’m very happy for this result, …. (Yasmine)
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I like writing 2 class, although sometimes need hard work to make you agree with my assignment, but I enjoy this class, and I like this journal too. We can share our interest and make me feel like we are friends not just lecturer and the student. And the most importance is I can improve my writing skill in your class. (Marisa)

Changes in attitudes toward their personal life and values
Besides changes toward writing class, the learners show changes in the way they value their lives. They become more grateful for everything that happens in their lives. It can be seen from the following excerpts.
First, sometimes I do not believe in what God’s plan. I did many things without asked God’s permission. I think that I can do it by myself. …I also realized that I have asked too many to God without allowing God to do His plan. Now I learn to surrender and allow God to guide my life. (Patrisia)
We have to be thankful in everything that happen in our lives. We also have to be thankful for everything that God has given. And the most important thing is that we have to be honest. (Sari)

New rapport between teacher and learners
Dialogue journals enable teacher and learners to get to know each other well. In this kind of journal learners can give feedback to the teacher personally. The following dialogue is the example of feedback I got related to the rules I set in the class:
Student
… I suggest you could be calmer, not too strict with us because …
Teacher
Vania, thank you for your honesty. What do you mean with ‘calmer’? Do I panic when I teach in class?
Student
No, you’re not panic. Maybe it’s better to change my words. I suggest you should be more patient.
Besides, through this dialogue journal the teacher can share his/her experience to the learners so that they can improve themselves. The excerpts below show how my student,
Imelda, responded to the suggestion I gave:
Student
… Also, I told you before, almost every lesson has its homework or assignment to do, so I get confused to do those tons of assignments or to manage the time. Moreover, I always get back …
Teacher
I think you should be able to manage your time well.
Student
Yes, I should manage my time better. Don’t be lazy.
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Conclusion
Having dialogue journals in writing classes creates an enjoyable teaching and learning process.
The learners can improve their cognitive skills in terms of organizing their ideas and giving supportive details for their arguments, and enjoy their writing practice. Moreover, they can have close relationship with their teacher by sharing their experience and interest one another. This kind of rapport can make the learners feel appreciated.
References
Connor, Ulla. 1996. Constrastive Rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second language writing .
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Jones, Paul. 1991. What Are Dialogue Journals?. In Joy Kreeft Peyton and Jana Staton (Eds.),
Writing Our Lives: Reflections on dialogue journal writing with adults learning English .
New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Peyton, Joy Kreeft. 1991. Settling Some Basic Issues. In Joy Kreeft Peyton and Jana Staton
(Eds.), Writing Our Lives: Reflections on dialogue journal writing with adults learning
English . New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Silva, Tony. 1990. Second language composition instruction: developments, issues, and directions in ESL. In Barbara Kroll (Ed.), Second Language Writing: Research insights for the classroom . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Tribble, Christopher. 1996. Writing . Oxford: Oxford University Press
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