USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO PROMOTE INNOVATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING

Over the past couple of years, social media have dramatically changed the way education is delivered. The new digital tools that have allowed students to connect and communicate in ways that were unimaginable less than a decade ago are now playing a major role in taking education into a new level. Students, who are one of the major users of social media, are using these online platforms to improve their learning in a variety of subjects. For their parts teachers are also making use of these tools to enhance their teaching methodologies and to help students learn.

An educational area that has witnessed an exponential growth in the use of social media platforms is language learning and teaching. In the past, learning a foreign language used to mean having to attend a class. Today, acquiring a new language is much more diverse with social media sites dedicated to language learning and teaching. In addition to their educational benefits, social media enable language learners to get in touch with native speakers of a variety of languages. Though grammar and vocabulary and rules are well acquired at school mainly from non-native language teachers, and no matter what language activities or exercises are done in class, students may still need more opportunities to enhance the four language skills. Nevertheless, social media, distinguished by the constant availability of native ‘teachers’, provide an innovative way and a live experience in which a language learner can practice his/her target language by interacting with native speakers in real time.