Homework on Facebook
Though using Facebook in classrooms may still be seen as ‘sacrilegious’ by the biggest conservatives, it may in many ways enhance learning.
With or without their teacher’s recommendations, students tend to enter educational groups where they can get an answer to most of their questions, without having to go through the anxiety of asking it in front of the class. In addition, as all the other group activities appear on a user’s wall, students can easily monitor the most popular discussions about the topic of their interest. Apart from this, closed course groups have also become the major means of communication between teachers and students outside the classroom.
Clearly, Facebook is still predominantly used for entertainment, but its educational potential is by no means small. When it comes to language learning, Facebook is just one of the social networks where students and language enthusiasts can improve their skills.
Despite all the language exercises they’re doing in class, students may still lack conversational skills. The truth is that class activities and discussion topics are not actual real-life situations. They do, however, try to imitate situations most people are likely to experience. Still, when it comes to online socializing, it actually takes much more to maintain a meaningful communication with an unknown person who doesn’t speak your language. On Facebook, you’re practically forced to invest a greater effort to establish informative and smooth conversation and this is where you can actually use your language skills.