User:Vanessamterry/sandbox

Social Media Language Learning (SMLL) links interactive social media channels to language learning. This enables students to develop communication and language skills. Social Media consist of interactive forms of media that allow users to interact with and publish to each other, generally by means of the internet. Daily observations and recent scholarly traditions suggest that a certain amount of learning takes place beyond the confines of the individual mind. Learning a different language involves social aspects which influences the way in which individuals learn language. Language learners are able to enhance their language skills due to the different avenues in which new social media have created. 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.

Blogs
Web Logs or blogs are one of many forms of social media. A blog is an area on the World Wide Web where people can express issues related to their lives and different viewpoints they may have. Topics within this form of social media are diverse and infinite. Blogs have become very popular and are very accessible.

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. Barbara Dieu,(2004) writes that blogs can increase a users language competence as well “blogs are egalitarian learning and teaching tools par excellence”,. When writing in a blog it is done to express feelings and to be creative, but as a result language learning can be achieved.

Steven Thorne (2009), an associated professor in the department of Applied Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, talks about students who were enrolled in an American High school advanced placement Spanish FL course. As part of this course, the students had to participate in an out-of-class blog assignment with instant messaging as well. The topics were not defined for the students and it was left open ended. In this course, the out-of-class assignments produced encouraging written production along with increased scores on standardized assessment measures showing significant Spanish language development. The students preferred the use of blogs and used it as a way of assessing their language learning. Blogs allow students to create fluent sentences from sentences that previously would stand alone. It also allows students to write in paragraphs and to use different tenses with more confidence to discuss topics within their blogs.

In a study by Hui-Ju Wu and Pai-Lu Wu (2011), they looked at learners perceptions on the effectiveness of blogs for English as foreign language learners. The study was conducted by administering a survey asking two questions. The first question revolved around blogs improving the English reading skills of the participants. The results showed a positive response of 82% of participants saying that blogs did help with their language learning. Blogs helped to develop vocabulary, increase reading speed, develop proper use of grammar along with enhanced reading comprehension. There was also positive results for the second question which revolved around blogs improving English writing skills of the participants. It was also stated that the participants had better sentence fluency, a higher vocabulary, better sentence fluency and an awareness of looking for grammar mistakes in their writing. A few students also mentioned that it gave them the confidence to write more sentences and to use different and more tenses.