Task 3: Facing Books: Social Networks in the English Classroom
Nowadays the internet is available in almost every region of the world. The newest developments are shared annually on diverse conventions like Ce-Bit in Hannover, Germany and companies like Apple, Microsoft and others proudly present their newest technologies on their own conventions. Even the cinemas "report" on the hype of the internet. Last year the movie "The Social Network", a biographical picture of "Facebook"-co-founder Mark Zuckerberg was shown and had significant success at the box office. It is without a doubt that one can say: Social networks, predominantly Facebook, are being elevated to main ways of communication in younger generations. Even in classes, students are telling their friends what they are doing right now via Facebook, mostly without the teacher noticing them operating their mobile phones or pocket-PCs. But those social networks can be part of the syllabus in an English classroom. The class could for example use the network to share pictures of a class trip, to share homework assignments in a group or to simply chat with each other in the English language. One of the problems is that teachers can not control what their students are doing in these social networks. It is also a critical factor that students should only use English while operating in social networks in class time. A good point to defend working with social networks is the freedom that students have during their time in a social network. They can explore, chat and be creative on their profile, create new groups or meet up with people from other countries in various chatrooms. It is also a good practice for people that like to develop their writing style. Students mainly write and create text in social networks. They can also add pictures or videos to their blogs or "walls" and create their own style through this. But a negative point is that a direct link to the syllabus of lower grades cannot be created. This means that older students (grade 10 or above) can use a social network in their English lessons and maybe improve their language skills but lower grades cannot because they simply still lack the language skills that are needed to have an authentic conversation. In addition to this lower grade students should still practice their language skills in an artificial environment that is close to an authentic situation. This helps them getting used to circumstances that could occur during a discussion in a social network. Another negative side effect of social networks or the internet community in general is the usage of shortings (e.g.: LOL = laughing oud loudly) and the so-called "leetspeak" (phonological derivation from "elite", the "e" is dropped and a phonological variation of the remaining "lite" is "leet") which evolved from the English language. Especially the "leetspeak", which is very common in certain gaming circles like "World of Warcraft" or "Counter Strike" communities, is a critical point in student's language development. Students play online games in their free time and this linguistically completely wrong language variation or even sociolect affects the students, making them believe that this is correct English. This can lead to serious language errors in language or academic papers in life. Social networks do in fact promote this wrong language by adding certain applications or personality tests (e.g.: "How 1337 are you?", 1337 = "1" looks like a lower case "L", "3" looks like a reverse "E", "7" looks like an esthetic capital "T", leeT = elite, elite language) which are in fact quite fun when you know the rules of the English language. But students could take this as serious and acquire these "language rules" as actual rules for the English language which would be terribly wrong.
These facts can give a lively impression how social networks can be used and should/should not be used. I think that these networks are quite entertaining and can be included in certain lessons but still are a great danger for students that are not secure in the English language. Using these social networks can pose a great threat and it should only be done by teachers who know what they are doing, who are proficient with the technology and who know how to adequately advise their students in the technology.
These facts can give a lively impression how social networks can be used and should/should not be used. I think that these networks are quite entertaining and can be included in certain lessons but still are a great danger for students that are not secure in the English language. Using these social networks can pose a great threat and it should only be done by teachers who know what they are doing, who are proficient with the technology and who know how to adequately advise their students in the technology.
