<strong>Using Flickr as an Informal Language Learning Tool</strong><img class=”alignright wp-image-5639″ src=”https://www.digilanguages.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Flickr.com_-1024×859.jpg” alt=”” width=”138″ height=”116″ data-mce-src=”https://www.digilanguages.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Flickr.com_-1024×859.jpg” />Flickr is a social and visual media site that is designed to allow you to share photos with friends, classmates and others. These photos can have a description which other people can comment on. Flickr users also have a profile which they can use to write about themselves and their interests. This activity allows you to interact on a one-to-one basis.In this task, you are invited to present a photo that you think accurately represents your home country and the other students are encouraged to offer and revise their own opinions of the image. You will also set up a Skype video chat for discussion. Flickr has been chosen for this task as it is easy to use.On completion of this task, you will be able to:<li>Discuss your beliefs of your target culture and your new opinions of the target culture with a student from that country.</li><li>Revise your cultural understanding and discuss your mobility with a better idea of the topics discussed.</li><li>Help another student with their language learning, giving you the opportunity to be a teacher and an ambassador of your home country.</li><li>Use social and visual media to learn in an informal language learning environment.</li><li>Understand digital literacies such as Social Tagging, Social Networking, Geotagging, and Social Bookmarking.</li><li>Converse with a student who is at a similar language level which will aid your own language learning.</li>
<strong>Instructions:</strong><li>Students are paired with a student from a university in the target language country.</li><li>One student in each group sets up a <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”https://www.flickr.com/”>Flickr</a> group for the other member and teacher to join.</li><li>Students source an image that they believe accurately represents their home country.</li><li>Each student uploads their image to the Flickr group, adding a description of the image.</li><li>Students comment on the image that has been uploaded to the Flickr group.<ul><li>Comments should offer an opinion on what is going on in the image based on your understanding of the target culture.</li><li>This activity can be extended to include photo tagging, geo-tagging, image sets and collection.  This <a href=”https://www.cnet.com/news/newbies-guide-to-flickr/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”https://www.cnet.com/news/newbies-guide-to-flickr/”>guide </a>may help you understand these features.</li>
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</li><li>Each group arranges to meet through virtual spaces (such as <a href=”https://www.skype.com/en/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”https://www.skype.com/en/”>Skype</a>, <a href=”https://zoom.us/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”https://zoom.us/”>Zoom.us</a>, <a href=”https://hangouts.google.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”https://hangouts.google.com/”>Google Hangouts</a> etc).</li><li>Students discuss a topic, a range of topics, or the images uploaded to the Flickr group. It is up to each student to correct each other on their cultural understanding and stereotypes, acting as both a student and a teacher.<ul><li>Students are expected to go into detail about their mobility programme experiences and create comparisons between their home country and their target language country.</li><li>Students can also create comparisons between their thoughts before and after spending time in their mobility country.</li>
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Other topics include, but are not limited to, activities such as sports and traditional games in general, school, family, friends, traditions, cultural festivals and food. These topics are discussed to create and improve intercultural understanding.<em><strong>Source/attribution:</strong> DigiLanguages         <strong>Author: </strong>Kieran Moore</em>