นางสาวผุ�สดี สหาสมบั�ติ�ID : 55120803116

TESOL 6

Microblogging for language Learning: Using Twitter to Train Communicative and Cultural

Competence

Introduction

Researchers : Kerstin Borau, Jinjin Feng, and Ruimin Shen.

Distance Education College of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China.

Year : 2007

1. การศึ�กษาการใช้� Social network : Twitter ส�าหร�บัผุ��เรยนภาษาอั�งกฤษเป็!นภาษาติ"างป็ระเทศึ (EFL)2. กลุ่�"มติ�วอัย"าง: น�กศึ�กษามหาว�ทยาลุ่�ย เซี่'ยงไฮ้� เจียว

ติง จี�านวน 90 คน3. ระยะเวลุ่าท'ใช้�ในการทดีลุ่อัง : 7 ส�ป็ดีาห, แลุ่ะ 2 ว�น ในช้"วงซี่�มเมอัร, ป็. 20074. ส�'งท'ติ�อังการศึ�กษา : - how the usage of Twitter trained

communicative and cultural competence.

Description of the case Study and the Datasets

1. Twitter and How It was Used in the Course

1.1 Twitter is a social network in which the members of a community share their current activities by answering the question “What are you doing?”

1.2 Microblogging tools enable users to post short messages that are distributed within their community.

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1.3 Users can post messages from their mobile device, a Web page, from Instant Messengers and desktop clients.

1.4 Twitter is a perfect tool to support learning English ; 1) easily accessibly from everywhere, 2) suitable for any level of English, 3) the use of Twitter as an online learning community.

1.5 Can help to integrate students in the community who could not attend classroom.

1.6 The students were then told to post at least seven microblogging messages a week and to read the incoming messages of their fellow students.

2. Students and Study Context

There are 3 main problems occurring in the English

Courses at the Online SJTU 1) The limited time available for study

2) The different levels of English 3) The size of the classroom (The students at

the online-SJTU are adult learners which come from varying social and educational background)

3. The Datasets

3.1 The Updates - The students’ updates were counted each week and a score was assigned.

3.2 The Questionnaire - Students were asked to fill out a

bilingual questionnaire (English/Chinese) about their usage of and opinion on Twitter.

Twitter and language Learning: Training Communicative and Cultural Competence

1. Using Twitter in Training Communicative Competence

- A supplement to practice in authentic environment different aspects of the target language as it was taught in the classroom.

- One aspect of language learning which can be practiced in Twitter is communicative competence.

- Focus on two subcategories of communicative competence: sociolinguist and strategic competence.

2. Using Twitter in Training Cultural Competence

Cultural competence is a subcategory of sociolinguistics.

1) Awareness of one’s own cultural worldview

2) Attitude towards cultural differences 3) Knowledge of different cultural practices

and worldviews 4) Cross-cultural skills

- Twitter allows the students to get in

contact with people from different countries on a casual

basis and thus provides cultural background to thetarget language. - Using Twitter, the students have the opportunity to communicate and interact more effectively with people across cultural; a skill which becomes more and more indispensable in the interconnected world of today.

Motivation through Community

1. Twitter as a Blended Learning Community

- face to face meeting - the exchange of information - provide part of the motivation for

the learners - giving the individuals the sense of

belonging to a group

Additional Results

- Frequency of visits- Length of visits

Related Work and Conclusion

- How to use Twitter in the classroom or analyses properties of te network and conversations without a focus on learning.

- Reports on topological and geographical properties, and also describes the most frequent usage types ( daily chatter, conversations, sharing information and reporting news)

In short, Twitter as a tool for active learning in the EFL classroom and provides the first detailed analysis or how Twitter was used to learn specific aspects of language. Main finding is that it is suitable to train communicative and cultural competence anytime anywhere with out face-to-face interaction. The work contribute to the research on using Web 2.0 services and tools for learning, so called e-learning 2.0. They show that the social, collaborative principles of Web 2.0 are reflected in its usage by learners, if used in the appropriate way. In this case, students clearly like using the service; one student even asked to continue to use Twitter after the project.