#parlezvousfrançais? Exploring the Use of Twitter in Language Courses

Streaming Media

Submission Type

20-minute Presentation

Abstract

In this presentation, I will talk about a semester-long Twitter activity that I have designed for a Second-Semester French course. For this assignment, students are asked to write messages on their daily lives, tastes or future plans, and to respond to others'. This activity is easy to set up and can be adapted to different languages and levels.

As the first semesters of language courses are content heavy and highly structured, Twitter offers students the opportunity to use the target language in a casual and playful way. Linguistically, tweeting about daily life allows beginners to practice basic vocabulary and grammar structures. This activity also teaches useful cultural phrases such as “I can't wait” or “I'm excited.” Beyond reinforcing practice, tweeting increases the learning outcomes by fostering language use in a fun and life-relevant way and by strengthening students' personal relationship with the material studied. This activity also enhances users' confidence in their abilities to communicate in the target language. Finally, it helps develop a sense of community and a positive atmosphere among learners, especially when several classes are involved.

In my presentation, I will expose the curricular concerns that led me to create this activity, and how I structure and grade it. I will also explore its learning benefits, as well as its logistical and pedagogical challenges. Finally, I will suggest variations on this assignment and changes that I plan to make when assigning this activity in the future. I will illustrate my comments with examples of students' tweets and reactions to this exercise.

Session

Language Learning, Presentation

Start Date

5-18-2016 3:30 PM

End Date

5-18-2016 4:45 PM

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May 18th, 3:30 PM May 18th, 4:45 PM

#parlezvousfrançais? Exploring the Use of Twitter in Language Courses

In this presentation, I will talk about a semester-long Twitter activity that I have designed for a Second-Semester French course. For this assignment, students are asked to write messages on their daily lives, tastes or future plans, and to respond to others'. This activity is easy to set up and can be adapted to different languages and levels.

As the first semesters of language courses are content heavy and highly structured, Twitter offers students the opportunity to use the target language in a casual and playful way. Linguistically, tweeting about daily life allows beginners to practice basic vocabulary and grammar structures. This activity also teaches useful cultural phrases such as “I can't wait” or “I'm excited.” Beyond reinforcing practice, tweeting increases the learning outcomes by fostering language use in a fun and life-relevant way and by strengthening students' personal relationship with the material studied. This activity also enhances users' confidence in their abilities to communicate in the target language. Finally, it helps develop a sense of community and a positive atmosphere among learners, especially when several classes are involved.

In my presentation, I will expose the curricular concerns that led me to create this activity, and how I structure and grade it. I will also explore its learning benefits, as well as its logistical and pedagogical challenges. Finally, I will suggest variations on this assignment and changes that I plan to make when assigning this activity in the future. I will illustrate my comments with examples of students' tweets and reactions to this exercise.