Social Media Language Learning

Background

The Social Media Language Learning (SMLL) method was originally created by a Barcelona, Spain, based company called Idiomplus. It consists in applying interactive social media channels to language learning, which will in turn enable the student to develop communication skills while using these social networks and became more advance in learning language.

The method provides the learner with the possibility of participating in actual, real-time, relevant conversations taking place online, and practicing the target language with the help of an experienced teacher by his or her side.

The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) method provided the basis for the development of the SMLL method, given both emphasise the importance of teaching within a great scope of contexts with the objective of developing a functional knowledge of the language. Perfect grammar and pronunciation are not essential to the process, rather setting the focus on the communicative competence of the student and the ability to understand and make him/herself understood.

The Social Media Language Learning is based upon three tenets:

1. Importance of live and actual communication in the target language through interaction and updated content comprehension and production based on Social Media channels.
2. Students' personal experience and interests play a defining role in learning, enabling relevant usage of language during and between classes with active participation of teacher and virtual community.
3. Fostering of social media communication skills at the same time as the language learning is taking place, in terms of editing, strategy, conceptualization, business insight, etc.

The student is therefore invited to emerge as much as possible in activities which require the use of language, given that all of them will result in learning. In-class and out-of-class communication are equally important. It combines the benefits of another method, known as Blended Learning, which allows the student to learn autonomously, whenever and wherever he wants, with all the required material available online, and at the same time have the support of an experienced teacher who eases the process and provides a professional and live explanation of the subjects at hand.

On-site classes with the teacher are intertwined with the ongoing online conversations with other relevant people. Learning is considered to be a constant, ever-flowing, indivisible part of everyday life, thus making the target language a part of it.

Classroom

A range of social media can be used to facilitate language learning, including blogs, online role-playing games, fan fiction writing, and so on.

Blogs

Web logs or blogs are one of many forms of social media. A blog is an online platform that people can use to express issues related to their lives and different viewpoints they may have. Blogs address a wide range of topics and are used in many different ways for diverse purposes. As blogging architecture became more user-friendly the popularity of blogs increased.

Blogs can be used for language learning. The ability to comment on other peoples blogs as well as have people post comments on your own is key to blogging. The development of a language is not normally the primary goal of the person who is participating in a blog but a blog is a place that can provide a foundation for reflecting on the language that is being written within it. Blogs can increase a users language competence as well "blogs are egalitarian learning and teaching tools par excellence". When writing in a blog it is done to express feelings and to be creative but as a result language learning can be achieved.

Steven Thorne has reported a number of trends with respect to blogging and language learning. Blogs used within language classrooms he has observed produce encouraging written production along with increased scores on standardized assessment measures showing significant language development. The use of blogs also enable teachers and instructors to assess written language learning in a relatively accessible way. Blogs, it is argued, allow students to create fluent sets of sentences from sentences that previously would stand alone. It also allows students to write in paragraphs and to use different tenses with more confidence to discuss topics within their blogs.

Hui-Ju Wu and Pai-Lu Wu finds trends with blogging and language learning. Blogs help with language learning. Blogs help to develop vocabulary, increase reading speed, develop proper use of grammar and enhanced reading comprehension. Blogs produced better sentence fluency, a higher vocabulary, better sentence fluency and an awareness of looking for grammar mistakes in their writing. Blogs can give the confidence to write more sentences and to use different and more tenses.

Outside the classroom

A growing body of research is documenting the ways in which primarily young people are learning languages via their social media, on their own, outside of formal language learning classes or programs. Social media studied include: online role-playing games, fan fiction writing, instant messaging, fan websites, virtual worlds, chat, and the like.

Online gaming

Many MMO (massively multiplayer online) games cross national and linguistic boundaries. They often have built-in chat functions and enable participants to chat with players from all over the world who speak various languages. This can provide players with the opportunity to learn a new language—at least at a basic level—so they can participate more fully in the game with the other players. The social interaction these players engage in while playing the game helps with their understanding of the grammar constructions and conversational ways of the language they are using. In short, gamers may well be using a language they are learning much sooner than they otherwise might, given the highly contetxualised nature of the talk typically found within game-play situations and the text-based medium of interaction. Without this social interaction, many students may be less willing to practice their new skills which would enhance their abilities in the language they are learning. Rankin, Morrison, Mckenzie, McNeal, Gooch and Shute found found that English as a second Language (ESL) students were able to acquire more language skills through the social communication that they had with the native speakers of English.

Learning language from video games, it is argued, is a contextual process. Gamers playing a game that has text and audio in a language other than their own (e.g., an English-speaking player playing a Japanese game) can draw on the context of the game to help them understand what is being said or written within the game. Many video games use repetition in their commands and this enables the player to recognize these words and come to understand what they mean and represent over time. Games transform the learning process from a passive task to one in which individuals engage actively in the experience of learning by focussing first on meaning. Computer games, researchers' argue, supply authentic environments for language learning, complete with ample opportunities for students to develop and test their emerging target language knowledge.

It is important to note that not all people who play these MMOs or video games necessarily start out wanting to learn a new language. Individuals playing MMOs typically want to be able to maintain social relationships with people who speak another language.

Social networking

In Wan Shun Eva Lam's research, she studies how forms of social networking in electronic media have provided alternative contexts of language development for young immigrants in the US. As a result, the two students' experiences with English in an Internet chat room can be seen as a process of language socialization through which they acquired a particular linguistic variety of English to construct ethnic identifications with other young people of Chinese descent around the world. Lam explains that by studying closely how people navigate across contexts of socialization in the locality of the nation-state and the virtual environments of the Internet, we may discover how practices of English in the global sphere articulate with local practices of English in constituting the identities and life trajectories of people. Through such studies, the different kinds of constraints as well as opportunities are made evident through what the internet offers language learners in various forms.

Online interests groups influence language learning. According to Thorne, Black and Sykes's research, participating in Internet interest communities has the potential to propel language learners beyond the confines of the institutional identity. Participation in these semiotically mediated communities may help to strengthen the ecological linkages between forms of language use and identity dispositions.

A number of social networking sites help individuals engage in language learning and interest. Livemocha is a social networking site in which allows members to communicate and learn language skills. According to the site, it has approximately 12 million registered members from 196 countries around the globe (although this includes members who have signed up for 1 day and never returned). Over 400,000 users visit the site daily. Facebook for example, allows language barriers to be broken down. need s

Social media and language teachers' development

The use of social media tools in language education is important because it creates a community for language teachers. The difference between social media as professional development tools and other professional development tools is that social media gives the teachers a community to participate with. The US Department of Education stresses that teachers should not only be connected to resources but they should have communities of practice that provide career-long personal learning opportunities for educators within and across schools, pre-service preparation and in-service education institutions, and professional organizations. (Office of Educational Technology, 2010 http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010/executive-summary). Communities of practice are "groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise" (Wenger & Snyder, 2000, p. 139). The social media tools help the language teachers to stay connected with their peers around the world and updated about their fields. Moreover, these online buttons give the language teachers the chance to help others in their fields, find solutions to their problems and improve their teaching language careers.