This document discusses social media language learning. It defines social media as online platforms that allow users to create and share content. Social media language learning links these interactive social media channels to language acquisition by enabling students to develop communication skills through participation in real conversations. The document outlines several social media tools that can facilitate language learning, including blogs, online gaming sites, and social networking sites like Livemocha, Busuu, and Italki. Research on social media language learning focuses on the online environment and tools, socio-affective aspects of online interaction, and pedagogical practices using social media technologies.

1. Researching language
learning in the age of
social media
Presented
By
Ata ul ghafer
Department of Applied linguistics

2. outline
 What is social media?
 What is social media language learning
 How social media help language learning
 Social media tools
1. Blogs
3.Social networking
Social networks for language learning
1.Livemocha 2. Bususs 3. italk etc.
 METHODS OF RESEARCHING LANGUAGE LEARNIN
2.Online gaming

3. What is social media?
 Social media is the interaction among people in which they create, share or
exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Social
media can also be said to be a group of Internet-based applications that build
on the ideological and technological foundations of internet that allows the
creation and exchange of user- generated contents.
 Classification of social media
 Social media technologies take on many different forms including:
 magazines
 Internet forums
 weblogs
 social blogs
 podcasts

4. What is social media language learning
 Social Media Language Learning (SMLL)links interactive social media channels
to language learning.•
 This enables students to develop communication and language skills.

5. How social media help language learning
 Social media provides the learner with the possibility of participating in
actual, real-time, relevant conversations taking place online, and practicing
the target language with or without the help of an experienced teacher by his
or her side.
 The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)method provided the basis for
the development of the SMLL method, given both emphasize the importance
of teaching with in a great scope of contexts with the objective of developing
a functional knowledge of the language.
 Perfect grammar and pronunciation are not essential to the process, rather
setting the focus on the communicative competence of the student and the
ability to understand and make him/herself understood.

6. Social media tools
 1. Blogs
Web Logs or blogs are one of many forms of social media.
• A blog is an online platform that people can use to express issues related to
their lives and different viewpoints they may have.
Blogs and language learning
 Blogs can be used for language learning. The ability to comment on other
peoples blogs as well as have people post comments on your own is key to
blogging.
 The development of a language is not normally the primary goal of the person
who is participating in a blog but a blog is a place that can provide a
foundation for reflecting on the language that is being written within it.

7. Example

8. 2.Online gaming
 Many MMO (massively multiplayer online) games cross national and linguistic
boundaries.•
 They often have built in chat functions and enable participants to chat with
players from all over the world who speak various languages. This can provide
players with the opportunity to learn a new language—at least at a basic
level—so they can participant more fully in the game with the other players.
 The social interaction these players engage in while playing the game helps
with their understanding of the grammar constructions and conversational
ways of the language they are using.
 • Games transform the learning process from a passive task to one in which
individuals engage actively in the experience of learning by focussing first on
meaning.

9. Gamming

10. 3.Social networking
 Forms of social networking in electronic media have provided alternative
contexts of language development.
 Practices of English in the global sphere articulate with local practices of
English in constituting the identities and life trajectories of people.
 Online interests groups influence language learning.
 A number of social networking sites help individuals engage in language
learning and interest.

11. Social networks for language learning
 1.Livemocha
Livemocha is a social networking site in which allows members to communicate
and learn language skills. According to the site, it has approximately 12 million
registered members from 196 countries around the globe. Over400,000 users visit
the site daily.
LiveMocha.com is a complete social network at its core. The site boasts over 6
million users and was named as one of Time magazine’s top 50websites of 2010.
In a Facebook like fashion, your personal profile appears with your picture and
your friends list. You build your own profile and indicate which languages you
want to learn and which languages you already know. Live chat is available with
anyone that is online and people use the chat to practice their language of
choice.

13. 2.Busuu
 Busuu is a language community that functions like a cool interactive game. It
offers free interactive lessons, exams, text and video chat, writing exercises,
reading comprehension tests and many other features. User scan write text in
a foreign language such as Spanish and submit it to have a native Spanish
speaker in the network correct their writing. Most of the features on the site
are free though paid upgrades are available for features like audio samples,
PDFs and Podcasts. Busuu must be doing something very right since they were
selected as the Red Herring 100 European Winner of2010

15. 3. Italki
 Italki.com, pronounced I-talk-I, offers an enormous community of speakers of
over 100languages from over 200 countries. You can connect with new friends
and language partners that speak the language you want to learn, find a
language teacher, use the questions and answers section, and access a variety
of other features to learn your desired language. In addition to being a social
network, there really is an impressive body of resources to be found in this
site.

16.  There are more many social networking sites like.
 Lang-8
 Voxswap
 My happy planet
 Facebook
 Twitter
 Youtube etc.

17. RESEARCHING LANGUAGE LEARNIN in
social media
 RESEARCHING LANGUAGE LEARNIN based on three categories.
 The first category comprises research studies that foreground as their focus the
design, tools and resources of a given online social media environment. In short,
studies that fall into this category focus primarily on the online environment and
its affordances.
 The second category of research concentrates on the socio/affective dimensions
of online social media as these relate to language education. When socio/affective
aspects are foregrounded, learners’ reactions and reflections are elicited via a
range of methodological techniques and form the core of such studies’ chief
observations.
 our third category, pedagogical concerns, comprises research that focuses on
teaching practices with social media technologies. Included in this category are
studies that centre on the pedagogical tasks, strategies and discourse of language
educators as they design and orchestrate learning in online venues.

19. Thank you