Innovation in Language Learning

Given that they are easy to use and accessible almost from everywhere, social media have become an essential part of our daily life. Today, these technological tools are widely used by people from all walks of life for a variety of purposes.  One major category of people who use these online social communities are students. The latter actually have recourse to these platforms to interact with friends, play games and watch videos. But, more importantly they use them to improve their language communication skills.

However, while numerous studies have demonstrated the importance of these tools in enriching the students’ language learning experience, the research works dealing with faculty perceptions and attitudes towards using these technologies in enhancing language learning and teaching are minimal.

Therefore, our objective in this paper is to examine how teachers perceive the use of social media for language learning and teaching purposes. To this end, a survey was carried out among higher education teachers. Results of the study revealed that many teachers are reluctant about using social media in education or still struggle to figure out the best ways to integrate these online tools into their class curricula.