IN SUPPORT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

In Support of Social Media in the Second and Foreign Language Classroom

Carmen Durham
iGeneration is the label for students born in 1990 or later who have grown up with
consistent and simultaneous use of technology (Mills, 2011, p. 345). They are highly social
and have redefined communication with their virtual communicative interactions via text
messages, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook (Mills, 2011, p. 345). Social media tools, such as those
mentioned previously, have quickly increased in popularity. However, they are not just a
frivolous diversion for iGeneration students; social media is an integrated part of [their]
personal, social, and civic lives (Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart, & Madden, 2015 as cited in
Krutka & Carpenter, 2016, p. 7). iGeneration students use social media to interact with friends
and family as well as to join professional and civic communities.
Unbanning Social Media in Schools
Even with its popularity and integration into almost every facet of students lives, many
schools ban social media inside of the school building. They ban it mainly because it is seen as
an unacademic distraction and a concern to privacy (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016). An example of
a study that supports the theory of social media being a distraction is Kirschner & Karpinski
(2010), who found that students who were Facebook users reported lower GPAs and spending
fewer hours per week studying on average than FB nonusers (p. 1243). Students suggest that
Facebook leads to procrastination and poor time management skills by allowing them to put off
studying (Kirschner & Karpinski, 2010, p. 1243). However, social media has its benefits as
well. For example, Kirschner & Karpinski (2010) found that Facebook users were more
involved in extracurricular activities, dedicating more hours per week to such activities, and
reporting on average more than two clubs or groups in which they are involved (Kirschner &

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Karpinski, 2010, p. 1243). Therefore, Facebook users may be better able to find ways to get
involved in community. This aspect of social media could help students gain social skills needed
for life after graduation.
The National Council of Teachers of English includes multimodal literacy as an
important goal, stating their desire for students to have fluency in a broad range of
competencies. In order to so, they must be able to consume and create texts in visual, audio,
and written formats, to evaluate messages in a variety of mediums, and to gain social awareness
and the ability to communicate and live in a diverse global society (National Council of
Teachers of English, 2007 as cited in Mills, 2011, p. 348). What if second and foreign teachers
joined The National Council of Teachers of English by harnessing the beneficial social aspects of
social media, using guidelines for safety, and teaching strategies to manage time more
effectively? Students would then be able to gain valuable linguistic and cultural knowledge as
well as engage in authentic target language communities. Krutka & Carpenter (2016) write, If
teachers hope to educate children for the world in which they live, then social media must have a
place in school experiences (p. 10). For the second and foreign language teachers, effective and
structured social media use could provide a community of practice where students collaborate
and share authentic media, a way to develop an identity that includes personal and academic
attributes, and a global source of information as well as a global audience.
The Benefits of Social Media in Language Education
Social media in the second or foreign language classroom can be beneficial for student
collaboration, forming a community of practice that the students and the instructor take part in
and contribute to. Using social media in the classroom encourages participation that can
support cultures of collaboration, draw on collective intelligence, and encourage users to give

IN SUPPORT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

and take according to their abilities and needs (Jenkins, Purushotma, Weigel, Clinton, &
Robison, 2009 as cited as Krutka & Carpenter, 2016, p. 7). This participation and sharing of
knowledge turns the class into a community of practice. In a community of practice, group
members jointly share and develop practices, learn from their interactions with group members,
and gain opportunities to develop personally, professionally, and/or intellectually (Lave &
Wenger, 1991 as cited in Mills, 2011, p. 349). Therefore, in a community of practice, learning is
a product of social context; knowledge and membership become dependant on one another as
students and the instructor form common goals and interests (Mills, 2011). An example of a
classroom community of practice appears in Mills (2011), who examined an intermediate French
class that created classroom Facebook accounts. They constructed mock profiles, devising an
identity for themselves. These mock characters all lived in the same building in Paris, France.
The students had to participate in communication at least 3 times a week, focusing specifically
on meaning. Through these communications, the students and the instructor posted a variety of
media, including music videos, painting, caricatures, etc., allowing students to create and share
identity with their classmates. Furthermore, sharing the common community and location of
the apartment building in Paris gave the class a sense of connection as well as a cultural
framework from which to communicate, and the media that the instructor and students posted
were authentic materials. Through the use of social media, the classmates formed relationships
and a common identity as well as viewed and shared authentic cultural elements that led toward a
common goal of language and cultural knowledge.
On top of creating a community of practice and a class identity, social media in the
classroom allows students to create a personal identity and share multimedia and other factors
that make up that identity. This is evident in the previous French class example, where students

IN SUPPORT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

could represent their sense of self by posting videos, music, art, etc. that interested them
personally. However, there are many more factors that lead to identity building through social
media. By posting personal information and media, students can in turn develop identity from
receiving feedback and adjusting based on that provided feedback (Mills, 2011). Moreover, shy
students may be more open to sharing and communicating online than in a classroom. Rosen
(2007) states that adolescents in general may feel more comfortable expressing themselves
online, saying, Teens, in particular, may experience a sense of disinhibition and safety online
that leads to increased self-disclosure and enhanced bonding (as cited in Mills, 2011, p. 348).
On social media, students feel like they have power to contribute meaningful and academic
knowledge to class curriculum that they may not in a regular class setting (Krutka & Carpenter,
2016). The students additions to the classroom conversation may lead to personal as well as
academic identity construction.
More than just creating identity, however, social media gives students access to global
sources and a global audience during unlimited amounts of time. Language students specifically,
a majority of whom cannot afford to travel and do not have access to native speakers in their own
communities, could communicate with native speakers from all over the world through social
media (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016). Krutka & Carpenter (2016) write, Social media can allow
students to access a variety of knowledgeable peers, parents, community members, childrens
literature authors, academics, and other people who might not otherwise be available (p. 8).
Through social media, students access unfiltered voices that would normally not be a portion
of their curriculum and who may have more informed and differing opinions about the topics
they are covering in class (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016, p. 8). This gives students a much wider
breadth of knowledge and information, hopefully leading them away from biased opinions and

IN SUPPORT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

into more open-minded knowledge of culture and linguistic approaches, such as dialects. Krutka
& Milton (2013) give an example of such social media use for a broadening of knowledge. They
write about Massachusetts history students who created blogs and Twitter accounts to share
information and communicate with educators in the US and Australia. The Twitter interactions
gave the students opportunities for feedback from other audiences besides the teacher, helping
them grow in knowledge and improve their skills in ways that otherwise would be impossible in
a regular classroom setting (as cited in Krutka & Carpenter, 2016). More than just providing
students with unlimited knowledge, social media also gives students an opportunity to access that
knowledge at unlimited times and allows for unlimited learning outside of school hours. For
example, Hunter & Carraway (2014) write about students in one high school literature class that
sent class-related Tweets on the weekends as well as evening from midnight to 5am (as cited in
Krutka & Carpenter, 2016). Through social media, students are not limited to specific times of
the day that they can learn. Because of these factors, in the end, students may even be more
motivated to create better products because they are sharing their work with a larger audience at
any time they feel productive (Ramsay, 2014 and Grisham & Wolsey, 2006 as cited in Krutka &
Carpenter, 2016).
Social Media Guidelines for Training Responsible Digital Citizens
Even with the benefits of social media in education described previously, schools still
avoid social media because they see it as a safety issue and distraction. Rust (2015), among
others, conveys that social networking can distract from official school work and cause a
departure in writing from academic voice. However, social media should not be used in the
exact same way as an essay written in academic voice. By design, social media is for informal
interactions designed to be like casual conversations. Teachers should not expect students to

IN SUPPORT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

interact in a completely formal and academic manner like they may in the classroom or in formal
writing assignment. Students instead develop a new form of writing that is infused with
communication and collaboration. Rheingold (2010) writes, Students need to cultivate social
media literacies concerning how, when, and where to focus their attention, how to effectively
participate and collaborate in online space, and how to critically consume digital content (as
cited in Krutka & Carpenter, 2016, p. 9). In order to use social media effectively, students must
learn a new media literacy. They must learn the appropriate vocabulary and the appropriate
formality. In turn, they can use this knowledge in their future careers and personal interactions.
Like any other curricular resource, teachers must give students guidelines for social
media so they know how to use if effectively in the educational setting. Krutka & Carpenter
(2016) write, Learning to use social media can be part of what is learned in any class in which it
is used (p. 9). The very issues that schools avoid by banning social media (harassment, privacy
concerns, distractions, etc.) are the very reasons why education should incorporate social media
(Krutka & Carpenter, 2016). Students need guidance on credibility, safety, and ethics when
using social media, so schools must show students what they can and should do with social
media instead of just stating the rules of what they should not do with it. In this way, schools can
truly train students to become responsible digital citizens (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016, p. 7).
Krutka & Carpenter (2016) write, Educators should help students consider whom they might
benefit learning from and with, and leverage the affordances of social media platforms to
facilitate such experiences (p. 8). Problems such as those Rust (2015) found with students use
of social media can be counteracted with specific guidance and a classroom that balance[s]
freedom with structure [such as] rubrics, guidelines, handouts, examples, suggestions, and direct
modeling (Rust, 2015, p. 501). Harnessing the benefits of social media, such as communities of

IN SUPPORT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

practice, identity building, and unlimited access to global sources of information, can occur only
when teachers guide students toward safe and effective use.
Discussion
Studies like Rust (2015) compare social media to traditional school expectations (p.
496). However, perhaps it is time for teachers to create a third space for classroom
expectations that involve aspects of the students personal lives, such as social media. Creating
such a space may pose challenges along the way. According to Rust (2015), The challenge...,
then, becomes a question of how to co-create new media spaces for identity-engagement with
students that are safe, purposeful, and authentic for all involved (p. 500). Using social media in
education is definitely not an easy endeavor. It takes a lot of planning and monitoring on the
teachers part; it takes time to establish guidelines and to model expectations. Otherwise, there
can be serious pitfalls that put students and teachers in uncomfortable, maybe dangerous,
situations. However, perhaps if teachers used social media, they could bridge the tensions
between academic purposes and social purposes in the students lives (Rust, 2015, p. 493). In
the end, using social media in education may help students see how to use it appropriate and
effectively in all aspects of their lives (personal, academic, professional, civic, etc.) to be part of
a global community.

IN SUPPORT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

References
Kirschner, P.A. & Karpinski, A.C. (2010). Facebook and academic performance. Computers
in Human Behavior, 26, 1237-1245.
Krutka, D. G. & Carpenter, J. P. (2016). Why social media must have a place in schools.
Kappa Delta Pi Record, 52(1), 6-10.
Mills, N. (2011). Situated learning through social networking communities: the development of
joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and a shared repertoire. CALICO Journal, 28(2),
345-368.
Rust, J. (2015). Students Playful Tactics: Teaching at the intersection of new media and the
official curriculum. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 58(6), 492-503.