Social Networks as Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Second Language Teaching in Higher Education

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v19i01.42013

Keywords:

social networks, second language learning, second language learning environment, computer assisted language learning

Abstract


In the post-pandemic era, the Digital 2023 Report highlights a rapid expansion in the global user base of social networking sites (SNSs). Despite the lack of formal integration of SNSs in second language (L2) education, which could enhance real-time creation, collaboration, and communication in the target language and culture, L2 learners still actively use these technologies outside of educational settings. This exploratory study utilizes a descriptive survey research design with a purposefully selected sample of 239 undergraduate and graduate students in their first and second years of language studies. These students pursue commonly taught languages, such as Spanish, as well as less commonly taught ones, such as Arabic, Persian, Slavic (Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Russian, and Polish), Turkic (Turkish and Uyghur), and Uralic (Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian), in addition to others, such as Mongolian. The diverse range of languages enables a thorough investigation of the use of SNSs among college-level L2 learners in the United States, including both widely taught and less commonly taught languages. The findings of this study show that the target age group exhibits distinct preferences in their choice of social platforms for personal use compared to those used in L2 classrooms. Furthermore, the outcomes underscore the significant impact of age, gender, and the method of course delivery on the usage patterns of social networking sites.

Author Biographies

Sibel Crum, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

Dr. Sibel Crum holds the position of Senior Lecturer at the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. She obtained her Ph.D. in Second Language Education & Applied Linguistics from the School of Education at Indiana University. Currently, she is pursuing her second MS degree in Instructional Systems Technology, also at Indiana University. With a diverse range of expertise, her areas of specialization encompass computer-assisted language learning, eLearning and distance learning, multimodality in computer-assisted language learning (CALL), social technologies in language teaching, language for specific purposes, and 21st-century skills in the digital age.

Öner Özçelik, Indiana University

Öner Özçelik is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University, as well as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Second Language Studies and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Linguistics in the same institution. He is also the Executive Director of the Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region, a Title VI Language Resource Center funded by the Department of Education and focusing on conducting pedagogical research and creating language teaching materials (e.g. textbooks) for Central Asian Languages. He has a Ph.D. in Linguistics & Second Language Acquisition from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and an MA in Applied Linguistics, with a TESOL Certificate, from the University of Pittsburgh, PA.  He has taught courses and published research on formal phonology and phonetics, as well as on linguistics in general and second language acquisition/teaching, especially with respect to the less commonly taught languages of Central Eurasia.  

Cover iJET – Vol 19, No 01, 2024

Downloads

Published

2024-01-10

How to Cite

Crum, S., & Özçelik, Öner. (2024). Social Networks as Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Second Language Teaching in Higher Education. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), 19(01), pp. 4–22. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v19i01.42013

Issue

Vol. 19 No. 01 (2024)

Section

Papers

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Dr. Sibel Crum, Associate Professor Dr. Öner Özçelik

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The submitting author warrants that the submission is original and that she/he is the author of the submission together with the named co-authors; to the extend the submission incorporates text passages, figures, data or other material from the work of others, the submitting author has obtained any necessary permission.
Articles in this journal are published under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY What does this mean?). This is to get more legal certainty about what readers can do with published articles, and thus a wider dissemination and archiving, which in turn makes publishing with this journal more valuable for you, the authors.
By submitting an article the author grants to this journal the non-exclusive right to publish it. The author retains the copyright and the publishing rights for his article without any restrictions.