370 The 63rd TEFLIN International Conference 2016 PROMOTING EFL STUDENTS’ ABILITIES IN WRITING DEFINITION PARAGRAPH THROUGH BLOGGING ACTIVITIES M. Zaini Miftah miftahmzaini@gmail.com Institut Agama Islam Negeri Palangka Raya,Palangka Raya, Indonesia ABSTRACT This study is aimed at developing blogging activities to promote EFL students‟ writing abilities in producing definition paragraph. The classroom action research was conducted in cyclic activities–planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting on the data gained from the instructional process–which runs into two cycles, each of which covers three meetings. The subjects were 18 Indonesian second-year undergraduate EFL students who enrolled in writing class. Writing tasks of definition paragraphs, observing writing process through blogging activities, close-ended questionnaire, and interview were used for the data collection. The results revealed that the implementation of blogging activities can promote the students‟ abilities in writing definition paragraph. It is indicated by the enhancement of the percentage of the students (75%) achieving the score greater than or equal to 80 and of the percentage of their involvement in writing process during blogging activities in Cycle I and II. The enhancement of the students‟ writing abilities can be reached; however, it should follow the appropriate teaching procedures of blogging activities development in EFL writing class. Keywords: writing ability, blogging activities, definition paragraph, EFL students INTRODUCTION In recent writing class, based on the personal experience of the writing teaching for English as a foreign language (EFL) students of the university in Indonesia, the fact that the students were still encountered with the problems to write. The trend problem was that the student writers were not motivated to communicate or reflect their ideas on their writing classroom. As a result, they did not have good abilities to write in English. When the students were assigned to write, to define something familiar surrounding them in the form of a paragraph, their writing products were considered as insufficient results. Majority of the students (55.56% or 10 students of the class) got scores 60-69; it was categorized in level C (fairly) based on the scoring system at the university. Only 11.11% or 2 students of the class got scores 80-100 categorized in level A (very good), and the rest of the students (33.33% or 6 students of the class) got scores 70-79 categorized in level B (good). Therefore, in writing classroom there should be a way to let the students exchange their ideas and respond to writings each other. Also, English teachers should try to use the teaching medium that contains aspects of pedagogy, social interaction, and technology use (As‘ad, 2010:175). As Harmer (2007:113) suggests that it is encouraged to build the students‘ writing habit. Many students either think or say that they cannot, or do not want to write. This may be because of their lack of confidence. Regarding the trend problem encountered by the students in writing classroom, in the present study it was an attempt to overcome the problem focusing on how the students get motivated to communicate, exchange, or reflect their ideas, and respond to writings each other interactively so that they have better writing abilities. To do so, it was proposed blogging activities that were implemented in the writing teaching to be interactive activities. Some reasons for proposing the strategy in the current study because English language teaching and learning is now getting better through several activities using technology tools including the use of social media. Among social media used, weblogs or blogs have now become an increasingly popular form of communication for teenagers and young adults, making it a potentially useful medium for the teaching of the English language (Jun, 2012). Besides, in the teaching of writing activities, blogging activities seem to be an effective tool to teach writing in English to improve students‘ writing and keep them motivated (Said et al., 2013:95). In addition, blogging activity is such an effective way teachers find and apply to enhance the student‘s ability in writing class. As suggested by Kitchakarn (2013:1), in order to improve