Multi-Purpose and multi-Task

    One thing about social media is that educators need to somehow change the prevalent perspective among students that it is only for greetings and entertainment.  Teachers need to add to the perspective another educational dimension.  The problem is that many students are not aware or may not welcome this intrusion into their fun game.  But use it, teachers must, as it is the new literacy practice most students are used to.  There should be some in and out of class activities that involve tapping into this technological background of students.

   For example, ESL students should be encouraged to communicate with each other using their cell phones.  They can use simple text messages, or more advanced apps like What’s app, Viber, Hangouts, or the like.  I think this should be done outside the school and on the student's own initiative as a fun way to learn language. The teacher should not feel compelled to check that exchange for any errors.  An authentic dialogue by beginning level English language learners (ELLs) will have many mistakes.  But I believe it is ok to make mistakes at this stage.  A spontaneous conversation goes a long way to learning a language like nothing else. But the idea is later on, the students would develop enough knowledge to recognize the mistakes they may make.

   On the other hand, maybe there should be some other activities related to social media where the teacher can check the answers.  Maybe a team project where students share ideas online (on a blog or web page), and the teacher can make comments to each student.