First-year students will often use a wide variety of social media, many will be active on a number of different social media platforms. This activity encourages students to exploit their preferred site for the purposes of language learning and introduces them to the resources that are available to them through these media. On completion of this task, students will be aware of social media resources in their target language. They will gain cultural and linguistic knowledge in a way that is familiar and enjoyable to them.
Material and links
Guidelines
- Survey the students on their use of social media. You can do this in class as a show-of-hands exercise, or the survey function on Kahoot (see task: ‘Using Kahoot! to motivate and engage first year students‘ for more information). Alternatively, you could circulate an online survey which you have created using Google Docs, Survey Monkey, or similar. The survey should be written in the target language of the class.
- Suggested survey questions could include:
- How much time per day do you spend on social media?
- How many social media accounts do you own?
- Which social networking sites are you on
- YouTube
- SnapChat
- Tumblr
- Pintrest
- Other
- Which social networking sites do you use most frequently?
- Who do you follow on social media? Whose posts do you engage with most frequently?
- Discuss the results of the survey in class using the target language. The personal nature of the information as well as the preparation provided by the survey should help students to become engaged with the discussion.
- Ask students to choose one of their social networking sites. In the case where a student does not use any social media, ask them to create an account.
- Assign the students a task to find a user on their preferred social networking site who posts regularly in their target language. This could be a blogger, a celebrity, a newspaper, a company, or a place of interest in a target language country.
- The students should follow their chosen social media user and post at least three comments on the user’s page in the target language.
- Students should also follow three further social media users who are connected with their chosen user.
Suggestions for assessment
Students write a report, give a presentation, or create a video of their experience of social media usage in their target language. Included in this might be items such as:
- Their reasons for choosing their preferred social networking site;
- Their reasons for selecting the target language user;
- Details of the types and frequency of post from their chosen user;
- Differences in social media norms in their first and target language e.g. use of emojis, use of acronyms, use of anglicisms in the target language posts, etc.
- Evidence of their engagement with the use (comments, posts, likes, favorites, etc.)
- Details of the three further users they chose to follow.
Students should be assessed on this report as they would be on a project they have completed. Criteria for assessment may include:
- Use and quality of the target language
- Engagement with target language social media
- Critical assessment of their chosen user from a cultural and intercultural perspective.
