Presentation by Svetlana Dembovskaya, Loyola University Chicago, and Liudmila Klimanova, University of Iowa, at the Language Symposium 2012, hosted at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). As integration of Internet-based social networking sites (SNSs) becomes increasingly popular in foreign language classrooms, the use of SNSs is particularly critical in the context of teaching less commonly taught languages, where students' exposure to the target language and its users is usually limited or even minimal. A foreign language educator, however, should be cautioned against the seemingly culturally unbiased nature of social networking environments. Recent studies show that, in online community spaces, cultural values and norms are established using methods similar to those of offline communities (see, for example, Hanna & de Nooy, 2003, 2009; Pasfield-Neofitou, 2011). We designed a project spanning two semesters that brought a rich and authentic target language social networking community, VKontakte, into Russian beginning and intermediate college-level classes. At the same time, we provided continuous structured guidance and regular opportunities for American students to reflect individually and in groups on their emerging insights into culturally determined uniqueness of the VKontakte online community. The students created their own profile pages, worked with students in partner universities in Russia and the Ukraine to complete weekly communicative tasks in Russian, and participated in online discussion forums. Analysis of students' weekly reflections and interactions with keypals appears to show that, over the course of the project, students developed more sensitivity to culturally salient features of the Russia-based social-networking community. Yet, the instructor's guidance was instrumental in developing culturally appropriate interpretation of Russian online culture. In conclusion, we will discuss the rewards and challenges of integrating social networking projects into foreign language classroom instruction.

1. Developing Task-Based Social
Networking Projects
(Russian L2 Classroom)
Liudmila Klimanova
The University of Iowa
Svetlana Dembovskaya
Loyola University Chicago
Language Symposium
April 14, 2012

2. Social Networking Sites (SNSs)
 Multimodal profiles
 The “Friends list”
 Interactivity (synchronous, asynchronous)
 Easy access to friends‟ profiles
 “Gated communities”
 Access to video clips, movies, music,
advertisements
 Access to online groups, forums and communities
 Daily updates
 Easy (and free) access from any computer
connected to the Internet

3. Social Networking and L2 Learning
• authentic social environments
• convenient venues for performing L2 identities and
experimenting with multiple identities
• self-authoring (McBride, 2009)
• online activities – less about exchanging information, more
about making symbolic gestures (Lam, 2000; 2004)
• communities of practices and situated learning (Lave &
Wenger, 1991; Reinhardt & Zander, 2009)
• achieve expertise through the process of legitimate
peripheral participation
• new generations of language students – „digital natives‟ or
neo- millennium student

4. Facebook or Target Language
SNS?
 Facebook:
 More familiar to American students;
 The layout/functionality of Facebook is clear; hence
switching to L2 does not present a big problem;
 “gated community” a safe social space, all
members are classmates;
 “American” environment
 Target Language SNS
 Easy access to L1 speakers‟ profiles; cultural
artifacts, authentic language use;
 “Home” of L1 virtual communities and groups of
common interest
 “Real world”
 A cultural phenomenon

5. Vkontakte (Russian: „in contact‟)

6. Facebooking practices in L1
 Preliminary survey…
◦ 32 students, aged 18-20 years old
◦ all but one student have a Facebook account
◦ on average – at least once a day to several times a day
 Motivations behind opening a Facebook account
◦ Practical
 Stay in contact or connect with old (after high school) or
new friends
 Photo sharing, keeping pictures in one place
◦ Peer pressure
 Friends moving from Myspace.com
 For friends who were also joining
◦ Intrinsically motivated
 For fun, “facebook seemed interesting”

7. Facebooking practices in L1
What features of Facebook do you use and how
often?
several once a several once a once a never
times a day times a week month
day week
Instant
messaging
Status updates
Wall postings
Private
messaging
Picture updates
Online
invitations
Apps and
games

8. Designing Vkontakte Task-based
Projects
 From Bygate & Samuda (2009) (three conditions
necessary for a task to be pedagogically beneficial
for learning)
◦ Field – content (linguistic, conceptual) relevant to L2
learning objectives + the sense of the overall intended
outcome and the procedures necessary for achieving this
outcome;
◦ Purpose – students‟ perception of a certain instructional
activity as being for their learning beyond the activity or
task;
◦ Engagement - how far the students are engaged with the
goals of the task;
 Sequencing of Vkontakte projects
Observer/Guided Vkontakte user Active/independent Vkontakte user

9. Projects and Participants
 Spring 2010 (Project Duration 8 weeks, March – April)
Second Semester Russian (n=26)
Fourth Semester Russian (n=6)
Russian speakers (a diverse group of native Russians residing in the US)
 Spring 2011 (Project Duration 6 weeks, March - April)
Second Semester Russian (n=22)
Fourth Semester Russian (n=12)
Russian speakers (students in two academic institutions in Russia and
Ukraine)
 Spring 2012 (On-going)
 One instructor; projects included in the course syllabus and
constitute a portion of the final grade for the course;
Weekly Project assignments: task completion reports, weekly
surveys, weekly reflections (in L2 and in English), final reports

10. Task-based projects – Spring 2010 (Duration – 8
weeks)
Week Assignments Description
Week 1 Registration and Creation of a personal account in
unguided Vkontakte
Week 2
exploration
Week 3 Project 1 Classified ads in Russian; write
and post your ad in your profile
Week 4 Project 2 VKontakte media, games,
applications;
Week 5 Project 3 Keypals – telecollaboration
partnerships
Week 6 Project 4 VKontakte groups
Week 7 Project 5 Send Email Jim about Vkontakte
(jimrichardson@rambler.ru)
Week 8 Final report Project Surveys and réflexions
Week 2-8 Status updates Update your status in your profile page
at least 3 times a week

11. Task-based projects – Spring 2011 (Duration – 6
weeks)
Week Assignments Description
Spring Registration Creation of a personal account in
Break Vkontakte
Week 1 Keypal Project 1 Write an essay about your
keypal
Week 2 Keypal Project 2 Describe in writing 3 differences
in the lives of American and
Russian/Ukrainian students
Week 3 Keypal Project 3 Interview your keypal and write a
newspaper article.
Week 4 Groups Project 4 Join three VKontakte groups and
submit reports on each group.
Week 5 Groups Project 5 Initiate and participate in a
discussion on a group wall
Week 6 Groups Project 6 Submit a written summary of the
Final report discussion and final reflection.

12. Students‟ perceptions
Keypal projects Groups projects
2nd semester students 2nd semester students
Personal Difficult
Educational Challenging
Interesting Intriguing
Fun
4th semester students 4th semester students
Interesting Rewarding
Fun Friendly
Patient Inquisitive
Polite Personal
Difficult Meaningful
Formal Time-consuming
Unique Condescending
(HS)
Nervous Intriguing
Challenging Fulfilling

13. Students‟ perceptions
Keypal projects Groups projects
2nd semester students 2nd semester students
Personal Difficult Distant Difficult
Educational Challenging Uninteresting Dull
Interesting Intriguing Confusing Irrelevant
Fun Irrelevant Strange
4th semester students 4th semester students
Interesting Rewarding Intimidating Daunting
Fun Friendly Overwhelming Prompt
Patient Inquisitive Helpful (HS) Unsuccessful
Polite Personal
Boring Tedious
Difficult Meaningful
Interactive (HS) Interest-peaking
Formal Time-consuming
Unique Condescending Frustrating Disconcerting
(HS) Difficult One-sided
Nervous Intriguing
Challenging Fulfilling

14. When a task fails to fire: possible
explanations (Bygate & Samuda, 2009):
 Processing of a larger amount of linguistic content;
 Lack of transparency from students‟ perspective of the
potential learning experience;
 No clear relationship between processes of a task and
an intended outcome (Why are we going this?);
 A task is not seen by students as contributing to their
L2 learning; “how learners are endorsing the activity,
and engaging with it in a meaningful way” (p.96)
 ?? Inadequate preparation for a real world activity by
the instructor;
 Lack of continuous scaffolding during task completion.

15. Role of weekly reflection in English
 Instrumental in helping students re-visit
weekly experiences in Vkontakte and
identify and accept cultural differences;
 Motivational in pushing students to
identify their strengths and weaknesses
and eventually become autonomous
learners;
 Informational for the instructor, revealing
students‟ perceptions of Vkontakte tasks
and degrees of individual students‟
engagement with Vkontakte projects;

16. Cultural „discoveries‟ through
reflection
 Nicole‟s (2011) oral reflection:
“I noticed that she isn‟t giving me as much
personal information as she could. There
were a couple of questions that I asked
her, and she didn‟t respond to right away.
And later she did respond to them. For
example, I asked her about her family, and
she didn‟t respond right away. And I was
thinking: maybe this is not the way they
communicate with strangers.”

17. Motivational reflection
 Aaron‟s (2011):
“I realized how little conversational Russian I
know and how much I still have to learn. I felt
limited in my posts as I could not say as
much as I would have wanted. I am not
going to lie, I used Google translator a lot. I
know it is often not accurate and I hope she
understood most of the things I said, seemed
like she did I think.”

18. Informational reflection
 Students modifying task conditions
“We both write a lot in the chat rather than on
the wall because it is easier for both to leave
a message or two on the go when we are on
our phones. There are days where we talk
throughout the whole day from our
phones.”(Hannah, 2011 )

19. Continuous Instructor Scaffolding
 Linguistic feedback planned by the
instructor;
◦ formal vs. informal markers : a mix of ты-вы, ты
verb endings and вы verb endings in the same
sentence or paragraph;
◦ feminine vs. masculine verb endings because
Google translate uses only masculine endings by
default;
◦ the use of unfamiliar complex structures provided
by online translators (very often used
inaccurately);
◦ the use of false cognates;

20. Continuous Instructor‟s Scaffolding
 Non-linguistic feedback planned by the instructor:
◦ Issues related to maintaining a friendly
relationship and commitment on the part of NS
participants;
◦ Issues related to time difference management;
◦ Discussion of possible reasons why some
students did not get responses to groups
postings;
◦ Issues pertaining to the features of Russian
Internet culture.
 Non-linguistic spontaneous scaffolding not
planned by the instructor;
◦ Student‟s cultural discoveries; issues brought by
students to class for whole class discussions,
conflict resolution;

21. Evaluation and Grading
 Two main criteria:
(1) successful task completion
(e.g., posted the minimum required 3 messages and found 7
differences, posted 3 message + wrote an article with sufficient
detail, posted 2 messages to groups and got at least one response)
(2) accurate use of target grammar and vocabulary in Russian
portions of project reflections
 Two steps in evaluating student reflections:
(1) Instructor collected Russian summaries of the English reflections
and corrected (underlined or circled) errors in target structures;
(2) Guided by the instructor‟s feedback, students corrected their
compositions and returned the final version to the instructor.
The grade was the average between the first and the second grade.

22. Challenges
 Evaluating/Grading (what constitutes
an A)??
 Balance between classroom work and
project work
 Collaboration with a paired institution
 Technical issues
 Continuous teacher presence online
 Timely scaffolding to prevent negative
experiences

23. Literature
Lam, W.S.A. (2004). Second language socialization in a bilingual
chat room: global and local considerations.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate
peripheral participation.
McBride, K. (2009). Social-networking sites in foreign language
classes: Opportunities for Re-creation.
Reinhardt & Zander (2009). Social networking in an intensive
English program.
Bygate, M. & Samuda, V. (2009). Creating pressure in task
pedagogy: The joint roles of Field, Purpose, and Engagement
within the Interactional Approach.

25. Informational reflection
 Students modifying task conditions
“It was a little difficult choosing a topic that
she was interested in for the interview. I
asked her whether or not she was interested
in discussing politics, movies, or music.
Victoria told me that while she does not like
Politics she always stays up to date on the
news in Ukraine and worldwide. We ended
up just talking about a variety of topics. I think
that while we did not stay on one topic this
week, we had a great flow to our

26. Informational reflection
 Student Engagement
“The most I enjoyed this week was exploring
VK.
I spent hours exploring my friend‟s profile, by
going through pages and pages on her wall”
(Steve, 2011)

27. Informational reflection
 Students perception of task importance
“The only recommendation that I have is to
make sure the communication between the
partners does not turn into “20 questions.” At
some parts of the projects my partner would
purely just answer my questions without
expanding on her answers.” (Erin,2011)

28. Any L2 learning gains?
Cultural “moments”
 Knowledge of L2 online culture (s) and its
conventions:
◦ VK is less legitimate at times (they ask for phones numbers to
verify things)… less restriction on the content of pages – a
huge cultural difference – maybe it is an extension of
culture??
◦ Virtual groups are closed/ or by invitation only.
◦ VK seems to be used to connect with friends but also to make
new virtual friends.
◦ Russians are way more open with what they post in groups,
whereas in Facebook you have to make sure it’s appropriate.
◦ People seemed to be more formal and the groups had rules
(!). People were up front with who they were and did not
“generalize” their profiles.
◦ People are more active in group discussions.
◦ Most of the users in the VK groups are all women. Most of the

29. Any L2 learning gains?
Cultural “moments” – continued
 L2 social networking pragmatics
◦ VK helped me understand register – formal and
informal Russian “at work”
◦ Russian Internet culture – smileys - : -) (FB) to ))
 A glimpse into Russian identities:
◦ VK had more beautiful people on it… Russians put up
their one and best picture on their profile. Maybe they
are more attractive.
◦ Russians put up glamorous headshots of themselves.
◦ “free (!) access to music and videos”
◦ There is a great deal of national pride displayed in VK…
. This is one major difference I noticed. I believe this is
simply a refection of life in Europe.

30. Trying new things…
Developing multimedia literacy
During this project did you do anything in VK that you
normally
do not do in FB?
◦ Trying new CMC and SNS functions:
 Talking [via a SNS] to people I don’t know
 Making posts on the group’s wall; posting regular status
updates;
 Looking through strangers’ profiles – I actively looked up
groups and ads and talked to strangers
 Typing Cyrillic on the computer
 Improving my L2 readings skills by reading posts and profiles
in VK
◦ Is addiction to SNS apps bad?
 I watched many more than the 3 posted videos, probably
about 2 hours worth of Russian videos just in that night –
(artifacts of culture);
 The VK project resulted in an unstoppable addition to a

31. Trying new things… cont.
 Becoming aware of the social contexts in
SNSs:
 Learning to be a more observant language learner:
 It was really cool to be able to see how the Russian
youth interacted.
 Negotiating one‟s power and place in SNS
environments:
 Talking to a NS made me concentrate on my errors and
mistakes. I was conscious of my grammar so that they
[NSs] can understand me.
 I actually started discussions on the groups I joined!
(playing a „social game‟ on equal terms with NSs)
 Experimenting with one‟s L2 identity

32. Status updates

33. Analysis of status updates
An of average amount of previously studied and not studied
vocabulary by project week (N = 317)

34. Analysis of status updates
Linguistic and non-linguistic expressivity - encoding emotion in a
status update
% status updates
ling/non-linguistic
non-linguistic
linguistic
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70