Innovation in Language Learning

During the last seven years, Web 2.0 tools have become an integral part of my English language classroom at the Cyprus University of Technology. The constant developments of new Web 2.0 tools have enriched the foreign language learning experience and made it more creative and interesting for instructors and students. However, with the rising popularity of social media and the availability of those various social media outlets on various mobile and non-mobile devices, the learning process has been inhibited by the permeation and proliferation of social media in the classroom, according to fellow instructors at the university.  As a result, we, the language instructors, have tried to intervene and limit the usage of social media during class. Unfortunately, such interventions have led to unnecessary confrontations and did not solve the social media usage issue. In addition, certain Web 2.0 tools such as Wikis and Blogs became much less popular than social media.  Furthermore, students were also not so keen in using the university’s Moodle due to various problems that students encountered by using or attempting to use Moodle, which added additional problems to my classroom’s progress. Faced by these developments, I decided to embrace the social media outlet Facebook for my Advanced English Academic class in order to provide students with a web 2.0 tool that has not been used for academic purposes, but it was seen as a major learning distraction in my institution. This paper is a personal reflection of my experience in using and implementing Facebook in a tertiary English language academic environment at the Cyprus University of Technology.