This document discusses a Moodle-based online course called "Writing in English" that is designed to enhance the English writing and computer literacy skills of Communication Sciences students at the University of Zagreb. The course uses various Moodle activities like forums, wikis, glossaries and workshops. While the main goal is to improve writing abilities, students also gain experience with online collaboration tools and communication strategies, increasing their overall digital skills. Feedback is provided to students in a way that balances error correction with encouraging further discussion to develop their writing skills.

1. Introduction
Two key employability skills for today’s
Communication Sciences students are written
communication and computer literacy, particularly
in combination with sound L2 proficiency.
L2 writing skills can be effectively enhanced through
participation in a variety of tasks and activities
incorporated in a Moodle-based course. Taking part
in such a course can also help students improve their
ICT skills.
This is an overview of Moodle activities and other
web tools employed to enhance L2 writing skills in
Writing in English, a course taught by the author at
the Centre for Croatian Studies of the University of
Zagreb. This is a compulsory course for students who
will subsequently go on to work in journalism or
public relations, fields where sound English writing
skills and a basic ICT literacy are vital prerequisites
for those who wish to be competitive in the current
job market.
Figure 1. Borongaj Campus, photo srce.hr
Background on the course
Writing in English is a 60-hour seminar attended by
Croatian undergraduate students of Communication
Sciences, as well as by Erasmus students majoring
in related fields, coming from a range of countries.
On average 15 students attend the course in a given
semester, all of whom have English as their L2.
Although the students are required to be at CEFR
level B1, a placement test administered at the
beginning of the course usually shows students to
have varying levels of proficiency ranging from B1
to C1.
Two face-to-face
orientation sessions are
held at the beginning of
the semester. The
remainder of the course
is conducted online and
the final exam is paper-
based.
F
Figure 2. Croatian Studies library, photo srce.hr
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the Centre for Croatian Studies
for their readiness to offer the course in an online
format, as well as the University of Zagreb Computing
Centre (SRCE) for technical support. I would also
like to thank the Croatian Academic and Research
Network (CARNet) for their excellent program, the
E-learning Academy, as attending it helped me
develop this course.
Moodle activities and other
tools employed in the course
Forum
Wiki
Glossary
Workshop
E-portfolio
Online notice boards
Impacting on student ICT skills
A survey taken by Silva, Lourtie, & Aires (2013)
found that computer literacy ranks high on the list of
key employability skills in the view of both online
students and teachers.
Although Writing in English course objectives do not
include specific references to student ICT skills, it is
important to note that students are highly likely to
acquire some of these simply as a result of taking the
course in its online format, particularly those which
their ICT skills practicum does not address, i.e. the
effective use of online collaboration tools, and
effective communication and feedback strategies
and techniques. This increases the students’ overall
ICT literacy, adding to their likelihood of securing
employment upon completing their study
programme.
Vedrana Vojković Estatiev, Centre for Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb
vedrana@octopus-jezici.hr @Ven_VVE
Literature cited
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revisiting teacher feedback in the L2 writing classroom In
The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue
canadienne des langues vivantes, 67(3), (pp. 377-399)
SILVA, A.P.; LOURTIE, P.; AIRES, L.; (2013). Employability in
online higher education: a case study In The
International Review of Research in Open and Distance
Learning, 14(1), Retrieved from
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1262/
2426
.
Conclusions
It may be concluded that the students’ writing skills
and written communicative competence are
enhanced through increased opportunities for
authentic written communication compared with
the classroom environment, as well as through
writing for a wider audience than the instructor
alone, which creates a less artificial writing context.
Student feedback collected at the end of the course
indicated that they felt it beneficial to be doing so
much writing and to be able to read the writing of
their peers, as well as useful to have the experience
of taking part in an online course, as they expect to
engage in this type of learning increasingly in the
future. Further research seems to be necessary
regarding which features of writing are most likely to
see improvement over the course of a semester, and
to what extent feedback has an impact on this.
Developing writing English skills
of Communication Sciences students
Corrective feedback and the
development of L2 writing
skills
In an online course, the fact that most of a student’s
written work may be seen by other students raises the
issue of whether the overall effect will be
demotivating if the feedback focuses
disproportionately on error correction.
Bearing this in mind, feedback in the course is given
in the form of comments on the students’ journal
entries in the e-portfolio, as well as short
personalised podcasts and screencasts in the case of
longer pieces of writing. While the comments in the
e-portfolio attempt to engage students in further
discussion on those aspects of each unit which they
have found interesting enough to reflect on, the
podcasts and screencasts provide a commentary on
features of student writing at the textual level, e.g.
cohesion and coherence.