Online activities and writing practices of urban Malaysian adolescents

Among a number of urban adolescents in Malaysia, going online is a much valued practice. They are regularly drawn to the Internet to engage in activities across school, nonschool, mainstream and alternative domains. The aim of this study is to know more about what these adolescents do online. Data on the online activities were collected from 535 adolescents (333 male and 202 female Year 10 students) in five urban secondary schools in Penang, Malaysia. It was found that while English was formally learnt as a second language in school, the percentages of language use on the Internet as indicated by them were: 77.06% in English, 8.16% in Bahasa Malaysia and 14.72% in Chinese. The participants’ Internet activities and popular websites showed their preference for entertainment and social networking. The overall trend was towards using the receptive skills of reading and listening rather than the productive skills of creating written output. Based on the trends observed, the paper concludes with some implications for ESL education, in Malaysia and other similar contexts.