DISCUSS THIS: ENRICHING THE TASK-BASED CYCLE IN LANGUAGE LEARNING WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

This presentation will focus on how new media and Web 2.0 technologies, such as WordPress, BuddyPress, and MediaWiki are used in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Language Center’s task-based approach to language learning, enriching the task cycle, creating new opportunities for teaching English (and other languages), extending the classroom, and enabling both students and teachers to measure the process of learning a language through formative and peer evaluation. In many ways, these tools give learners opportunities to be independent in their learning; encourage a wider range of expressive capability; facilitate more collaborative ways of working; and create more authentic opportunities for learning a language. In addition to showing the affordances and limitations of Web 2.0 technologies in the language classroom, I will also suggest strategies for incorporating these tools into a Language Center curriculum under a task-based approach to learning.