Description

Students enrolled in our Italian language courses at the Modern Languages department at FSU practice Italian on Twitter on a daily basis. From the first day of school, students tweet about their daily life, answer question, interact with each other or post links to online material in the target language. The goal of this out-of-class activity is to overcome the spatiotemporal boundaries of formal instruction through a practice that allows students to use the foreign language in informal daily contexts, anytime, anyplace. In fact, students can post on Twitter using their desktop computer, laptop, smartphone or tablet.

Unique Features

By practicing their language skills daily on Twitter, learners are able to transcend the physical boundaries of the class and communicate among their classmates in the foreign language. In fact, by following one another on Twitter, cooperative learning is enhanced along with students' sense of community. Though it might not produce a significant effect if done in isolation, this supplemental activity can lead to significant improvements in target language production in social contexts.