The Benefits and Implications of Learning English through Facebook Groups

The benefits & implications of learning language using facebook groupNeny IsharyantiSatya Wacana Christian UniversitySalatiga, Indonesia

GloCALL 2015 | Daejeon, South Korea | 13112015

overview• Curiosity• Experts Said• The Study• The Results• In Retrospect• Q & A


CURIOSITY


Social media usage worldwide

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2542749/Facebook-favourite-social-network-teens-beating-YouTube-Twitter.html


Indonesia?


21st century learners

• https://edtechdigest.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/trends-infographic-learn-now-lecture-later/


EXPERTS SAID


Language learning process

• Faerch & Kasper (1983) Communicative Competence: linguistics,

pragmatics, sociolinguistics competence• Schieffelin & Ochs (1986)

language learning process is not only a transformative linguistic mental process, but it also situated in social and cultural contexts which help transforming/ creating human understanding.


Language learning process in 21st century

• Contexts F2F & online • The potentials and promising offers

of online contexts in assisting language learning (Lamy & Zourou, 2013; Meskill, 2012; Thomas, 2011)


Actor-network theory

• Law (2007), Fenwick & Edwards (2010), Sismondo (2010) Network – language learning Actor – objects, subjects, human beings,

machines, animals, ‘nature’, ideas, organizations, inequalities, scale and sizes, and geographical arrangements”

• Sustained language learning


Social capital• Bordieu (1986); Putnam (1993); Bordieu & Wacquant

(1992) “one’s accumulated social relationships with others,

and is defined as the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (p. 119) .

• Social capital in learning (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; Phua & Jin, 2011; Greenhow & Burton, 2011)

• Social capital in Facebook (Wang et al., 2013) achieving better grades, higher engagement, and

greater satisfaction with the university learning experience.


Types of social capital

• Bonding – close, personal relationship for emotional support & personal benefits

• Bridging – casual acquaintances and connections for information & analytic diversity benefits

• Maintained – online & offline relationship


THE STUDY


Research questions• Who are the important bridging

actors?• What are the influences of social

capital of the actors in the process of language learning?


context• English for Specific Purposes

Business English for International Classes for Management and Accounting Program, Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga, Indonesia)

• Blended Learning F2F Online

• Aims/Assessments: Job search: writing a letter of application & curriculum vitae,

job interview Cross-Cultural Understanding: online discussion on business

cases Business Project – writing a proposal, presenting the proposal


methodology• Focus on the online context• Social Network Analysis

Interaction on Facebook group NodeXL

• Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis Transcript


THE RESULT

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Who’s important?• Eigenvector + Closeness Centrality


Who’s important?• On a closer look..

Participants TOEFL score

Course Scores

Class Rank (Pre)

Class Rank

(Post)

In-Degree

Out-Degree

Betweenness Centrality

Eigenvector Centrality

Comments Received

Comments Created

Total Comments

TMK 437 72.19 Low Low 9 13 10.18 0.07 17 38 55KR 503 73.50 Mid Low 14 6 13.52 0.07 28 8 36SD 443 82.28 Low High 10 9 6.86 0.07 24 22 46SS 417 72.52 Low Low 12 6 9.05 0.06 25 18 43ES 440 73.61 Low Low 9 8 12.74 0.06 15 11 26DH 537 79.59 High High 10 6 6.09 0.06 12 6 18


Effects on learning• Inconclusive• But…

What abilities/skills are emphasized? Assessment methods?


PARTICIPATION• F2F class discussions

Tangible Extrovert students Listening and Speaking abilities Short processing information – unequal footing

• Online class discussions Intangible (numbers don’t always count) Extrovert AND introvert students Reading and Writing abilities Give more time to process information, at

students’ paces – equal footing


IN RETROSPECT


Abilities/Skills focus• Linguistic abilities?• Other abilities?• Linguistics

Syntactic abilities Semantic abilities Pragmatics abilities Sociolinguistic abilities

• Linguistically weak students not communicative students


benefits• More equal opportunities

Diversity in students’ learning background• Learning styles• Cognitive processes• Communication style /skills• Linguistics abilities

• Varied contexts exposure F2F vs. online

• Variety in Assessments


Implications• Course design

Objectives of learning Skills emphasized Fair opportunities Recognition of other skills than

linguistics abilities/skills


limitations• Limited data

Number of students Number of interactions Length of data collection

• CMDA has not been employed yet


ANY QUESTI

[email protected]

@nenyishabout.me/neny

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The Benefits and Implications of Learning English through Facebook Groups