Innovation in Language Learning

The teaching of reading and writing in Indonesia has been applying genre-based approach.  Starting from elementary up to the university level, the students are required to read and write according to the genre such as narrative, descriptive, and procedural texts.  The application of this trend could be more beneficial to the students and the teachers if they engage the reading and writing process through wikis as media. 

Wikis is the most readily available and most commonly used information technology tool for most students not only in Indonesia but also throughout the world. Most students usually get information through wikis.  However, it is also believed that they could also share their own version of information through this media.  Wikis is a simple and less rigid media for students to try to write something and share their ideas and information to the world.  Teachers, in this case, need only to motivate the students, facilitate them, and keep the process of reading and writing of the students so that they could finally make their final version of a piece of writing along with the suitable pictures to accompany the writing before they upload their work and introduce their local culture to the world.

By using IT media, it is expected that students, in Indonesia especially, could improve not only their writing skills but also raise their motivation to write based on the genre as required by the curriculum. This paper gives a model of teaching EFL to students in that it adopts the use of IT especially wikis as media to enhance their English writing skills.