Abstract:

Social networks have become an integral part of modern life having moved from platforms predominantly confined to individuals exchanging personal information to media widely used by businesses, not-for-profit organizations and even politicians. The authors consider that integration of Instagram into teaching a foreign language to non-linguistic students increases students’ motivation and facilitates the acquisition and correct application of lexical and grammatical structures in productive oral and written speech. A pilot project that involved extensive and explicit use of Instagram to enhance both classroom and extracurricular activities was launched at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in order to prove the hypothesis. In the framework of the research, a group of university instructors and undergraduate students of Marketing and Management departments used Instagram to provide guidelines, share resources and practice oral and written responses. After a two-year trial period, a survey was conducted to measure students’ satisfaction levels and general engagement in the educational process. Moreover, a higher level of foreign language competence was observed in the groups that used Instagram in comparison with control groups.

Keywords:

Teaching, foreign language, Instagram, social networks, students’ satisfaction.