Facebook and Informal learning: a new methodological approach in language teaching

Abstract

This research paper is concerned with the implementation of innovation techniques in the process of learning and teaching foreign languages. Adapting contents to twenty-first century students' mentalities implies information has to be used collectively. Our main aims are the assessment of informal learning through stimuli and alternative dynamics which connect self-assessment and co-assessment, as well as developing and carrying out competences and strategies which facilitate learning. For the experimental process we worked with Italian and Spanish language students. In order to accomplish our goal, we delivered a series of collaborative courses in which qualitative and quantitative studies related to learning through Facebook as a social network were conducted. Besides, we distributed work among communities which adopted a constructive dimension of knowledge through the shared use of information. The process facilitated both the production and the exchange of knowledge based on the pragmatic and sociocultural nature of the contents, while also taking into account the enhancement of basic competences such as know how to be and how to do. Results were very encouraging, although quite controversial during the collection process, due to the fact that students had been educated for generations in individualistic learning systems. However, learning communities strongly motivated them and, in the end, positive results were reported thanks to the implementation of informal learning.