When we talk about SNS what will you think
about? Your daily life sharing ? Entertainment gossip news? Yeah, these are the
basic functions of SNS, which helps people to establish links between each
other. In this information age, the internet provides a platform for each individual to
share their life and opinions, but have you ever thought about to use SNS to
share your ideas about English teaching or get some ideas from it?
Advantages
I never thought about this from teaching
perspective before as well, but as an English learner (until now :p), I always
try to find something that can help me learn English from SNS. However, I want
to say that Twitter is really a good recourse for English teacher. Since
everyone can establish an account for twitter, it is possible to find a lot of
famous English teaching researchers or teaching organisations on this platform. Because
people are linked via internet, you can find some other useful sources or
people by searching the following and followers, and you can follow them as
well. At the same time Twitter will recommend somebody you might interested in
to you. So there are plenty of resources on ELT.
The second function I prefer is the #Hashtag.
You can find different Hashtags by searching. What are the functions of
Hashtags? You can post a tweet with Hashtag, and the other people who follow
this topic as well, will find your tweet, and they could give comments to it,
and you can have a discussion together via that. Similarly, you may also find
others twitter under one Hashtag, so you can actively have a discussion with
these users as well. Here is a very useful Hashtag I’d love to recommend to you,
#ELTchat. Every Wednesday, there will be some topics to be discussed, and ELT teachers from different
countries will discuss together, so I believe you will get some brilliant ideas
from there on your teaching process.
However…
There are some limitations that cannot be
ignored. Firstly, about the privacy problem. Some people (for example your students, if
you don’t hope they find your ‘secrets’) may get access to your profile, or
your photos, so your personal information may be watched by others. Moreover,
some people may have different images when they are holding the ‘teacher’
identity, so once Twitter leaks different images to their students, such as your
drunk photo, it may be difficult to keep a respective image to the students.
Thus, if it is possible, create a new account for teaching purposes, and check
your followers regularly, if you find someone you don’t like, you can block
them.
Secondly, you can only put 140 characters
in one tweet. I think it is too limited to express one’s opinion. But you can
type all the things you want to say first, and then screenshot, so you can
share your words by image. But still not so convenient.
Finally, the most significant shortage is
that it cannot be accessed in China. Although there are many ideas and
resources on Twitter, for the policy issues, Twitter cannot be linked in China.
Fortunately, there is something similar in China, Weibo (微博, the direct translation of microblog ). This SNS is really popular
in China today.
Weibo
Compared with Twitter, it also limits the
word for each post. In here, the users can type 140 words in Chinese characters.
Due to the features of Mandarin that 140 Chinese characters could transmit more
information than 140 English characters, one post of Weibo can cover more
information. Additionally, Weibo has the function to post “Top Article”, which
allows users to post a passage on it, like a blog. So Weibo can help teachers
share their ideas more directly and easily on Weibo. Of course only the title
and the starters of these articles can be seen while followers scanning, so it
won’t cause time consuming.
This social communication tool has a topic discussion
area, similar with the Hashtag in Twitter. People can discuss there, and the host
could select some cool review and post them at the top of this discussion area.
These are my ideas about Weibo using on
teacher autonomy, however, the resources on English language teaching are very
limited, and most of that is for learners rather than teachers. Some of famous
English teachers in China post a lot of things about their working life, but
the thought about teaching methods or skills are very rare. I really hope the
teachers in China can utilise this platform to improve our teaching methods and
share valuable resources. I find one account on the web related to the teaching method. It regularly holds some discussions in Chinese, if you are interested in
you can follow it as well.
SNS in China is gradually become
significant for daily life, and if we could make it work for our teaching
purpose, I think the efficiency will be improved a lot.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteafter reading your posts, I can realise the needs of SNS in China nowadays.
just in case for the understanding from readers, I would recommend mentioning the full name of the abbreviation.
Also, will there be any potential for Weibo to expand its market outside the Asian markets? I think it would be a great investigation.