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Article published In:
Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 4:2 (2015) ► pp.193–211

Social media in EFL teaching

Promoting (oral) communication skills in complex competency tasks

This article presents an approach to fostering (oral) communication skills in L2 English using social media. It proposes that social media provide a setting for synchronous and asynchronous oral CMC and can be a motivating environment for communicative tasks in the lingua franca English as adolescent learners are used to participating online, both in written and spoken modes. This can be exploited in complex competency tasks in which learners are exposed to real-life discourse and the associated linguistic challenges. Complex competency tasks can provide a framework for web-based language learning and facilitate the development of oral communicative competencies. Among the implications for teaching discussed are sensible embedding in tasks, potential issues of student participation and motivation, and the authenticity of the environments. The article concludes that social media provide a fruitful platform for combining web-based and task-based language and media learning in (semi-)authentic contexts in complex competency tasks.

Keywords: social networking tools, Social media, task-based language learning (TBLL), English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), English as a foreign language (EFL), authenticity in language learning, oral communication, computer-assisted language learning (CALL), synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC), asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC)
Published online: 4 February 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dujal.4.2.04wie
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