Presentation at the 45th NeMLA Annual Convention, April 4, 2014, Harrisburg, PA

1. Pull Your Students to the Target
Language: Facebook for Language
Learning
April 4, 2014
Technological Tools for Successful
Teaching and Learning - Roundtable
Fabrizio Fornara
Florida State University

2. Social Networking Sites in Education
• Web 2.0 technologies for language-learning:
blogs, wikis, virtual worlds, podcasts, and social
networking sites (SNS) (Wang & Vásquez, 2012).
• Social networking sites:
o student-student networks
o social and collaborative learning
o individual control
o online and blended learning settings
• Social networking sites enhance students’
o attitude (Antenos-Conforti, 2009)
o engagement (Junco, Heibergert, & Loken, 2011)
o performance (Shih, 2011)
o autonomous learning (McBride, 2009)

3. Facebook in Education
• Most popular SNS among American college
students (Junco, Heibergert, & Loken, 2011)
• Familiar, informal learning environment
• Constant exposure to the target language
• Desktop and mobile
• Target language part of students' daily life
• Interactions similar to class’ interactions (McBride, 2009)

4. • Student-instructor, student-student, and student-
material interactions
• Instructor: facilitator of information
• Learners actively involved (Wang, Woo, Quek, Yang, &
Liu, 2012)
• Material: authentic, contextualized, retrievable from
the Internet
• Privacy: Users are not reciprocally connected,
Facebook in Education (cont.)

5. Facebook Page

6. Facebook Page (cont.)
• Students are not mutually connected
• Students “like” the course page  personal account
• New material posted  students’ news feed
• Integrate other language learning activities
• Graded activity  participation, not correctness
• Daily new activities: Text, multimedia
resources, questions
• Two main sections:
o Wall
o Events

7. Wall - Home Page

8. Wall - Home Page (cont.)

9. Wall - Home Page (cont.)

10. Wall - Home Page (cont.)

11. Events

12. Events

13. Events

14. Events

15. Limits
• Students may perceive the Facebook activities as
an extra task in addition to the workload of the
course
• Students may be uncomfortable with using
Facebook for class activities, not wanting to mix
leisure activities and spaces with formal instruction
• Instructors may have to obtain institutional
approval to use Facebook in a formal learning
setting

16. Questions?
Thank you!
@ffornara
April 4, 2014
Technological Tools for Successful
Teaching and Learning - Roundtable