Social Media Use in the Language Classroom

 

When will the excitement about social media fade? It likely won’t. In fact, we are learning to embrace its advantages! “Recently, there has been a drive towards ubiquitous learning with more and more schools being fixated on student centered learning” (Sam, 2021, p. 231). I dug a little deeper into understanding how to apply social media in language learning. Wong et al. (2017) explains that a seamless language learning approach takes traditional curricula and redesigns the learning experience to promote authentic interactions using social media. “In short, the age of social media offers unprecedented opportunities for language educators to create learning environments for the pervasive trajectory of authentic, cross-contextual and socialized language learning (Wong et al., 2017, p. 11-12).

Wong et al. (2017) describes two different approaches to seamless language learning. In one approach the educator has minimal involvement in the social media student exchange. The benefits to this approach are that it sets the stage for a more authentic language experience. Students are motivated to interact with their peers without the hinderance of teacher corrections stifling their thoughts. This approach will “…build environments where L2 learners dare to “tinker” with self-expressions and communication in the target language” (Wong et al., 2017, p. 12). The downfall to this approach is that it puts little emphasis on linguistic accuracy and great emphasis on student accountability. In the second approach, the students receive more structured, task-oriented direction with the use of social media. The educator monitors and contributes feedback.

When debating which approach to use in my own classroom, I should consider the needs of my students and how they would best benefit from the integration of social media. I need to ask myself ‘Am I looking to encourage and honor the process of authentic socialization or do I have a particular learning objective in which I need to facilitate the process to meet the goal? In many cases, a balanced approach is best for the integration of social media in language learning. I think the use of Instagram provides the excitement of authentic interactions with peers, while it can also be task-oriented for an educational purpose. “The key educational application of Instagram is sharing videos or images for analysis or reference by learners” (Sam, 2021, p.232). The teacher can make a post and require students to comment, though this may not illicit a natural interaction. Instead, I might flip this idea into a student post. For example, take a key vocabulary word and turn it into an Instagram assignment. Students need to create a post related to the vocabulary word. Peers who “follow” them on Instagram can comment and reflect. 

Has anyone out there tried Instagram in the classroom?

 

 

References

Sam, C. (2021). Selection of Social Media Applications for Ubiquitous Learning using  Fuzzy TOPSIS. Retrieved, November 22, 2022       from  https://thesai.org/Downloads/Volume12No2/Paper_30          Selection_of_Social_Media_Applications.pdf

Wong, L., Sing-Chai, C., & Poh-Aw, G. (2017). Seamless language learning: Second language learning with social media. Comunicar (Huelva, Spain), 25(50), 9          21. https://doi.org/10.3916/C50-2017-01