Proceedings of The 5th International Conference on Modern Approaches in Science, Technology & Engineering
Year: 2019
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/worldcre.2019.08.461
A Review: Can Social Media Teach English as a Foreign Language?
Dilek Canakci
ABSTRACT:
Being an important part of our lives, social media allow individuals to articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system (boyd and Ellison, 2007). Therefore, with this function of communication, it is highly possible that social media can contribute to foreign language education process. In fact, the importance of this topic has increased due to the dramatic increase of online sources and growing reliance of language educators on social media in terms of preparing students for a globalized and multilingual world (Godwin-Jones, 2016). The main aim of this study is to present a review of the related studies conducted in the last 10 years by investigating (1) the social networking sites and applications used in foreign language education process, (2) the use of social media in and out of classroom, and (3) the perceptions of teachers and learners on the use of social media in foreign language education. Finally, it focuses on the conclusions of the studies reviewed in the present study. This review is hoped to shed light on the future studies that may be conducted by presenting a content analysis of the previous studies.
Keywords: foreign language education, social networking sites and applications, online learning, social media.