Tweet Sheet

Twitter poses many possibilities for today's educators and learners. Not only can it serve as a professional development resource and networking tool, but it can also be used to engage students in one of their preferred writing styles (Edudemic). Below are a few ideas of how to incorporate Twitter into foreign language teaching.

Twitter is about collaboration, "[it] can open up new worlds to just about anyone involved in education. Parents can connect with one another and their children’s teachers, students can collaborate or participate in hashtag chats, and teachers can build a robust professional / personal learning network (PLN)," (Twitter Tips For Students and Teachers). There is great value in the networks that teachers are able to establish, but there is also wonderful potential for connecting with students and parents through Twitter.

The Teachers Guide to the Use of Twitter in the Classroom provides many practical suggestions for how to Tweet in the K-8 classroom. One idea proposed is to give students the task of “Twitterer” of the day to document what is going on in class. This could be easily applied to the foreign language classroom by assigning students the task, but using Spanish or another L2. Some other ideas from the guide include: assign specific topics for students to tweet about, create a class twitter and teach parents to subscribe, and have everyone tweet on paper then vote for the best quality tweet to publish. Again, these could easily be adapted by performing the tasks in the L2.

Moreover, in the L2 classroom students could use Twitter for authentic communication. Students could follow other classmates (or native speakers) and simply use Twitter for one of its main purposes (Tweeting updates, commenting, “staying in the know” about Hispanic celebrities). It could also be used as a type of forum for help with homework of areas of difficulty (#HwHelp). A Twitter-like exit slip could even be used, asking students to write a “Tweet” to summarize what was learned in class that day (only 140 characters), or give a hashtag for the day’s lesson.

Certainly, proper “Netiquette” (internet etiquette) would need to be covered as well as what is appropriate to Tweet, but with the proper parameters and security in place, Twitter can be a great way to connect, communicate, and collaborate with students, parents and other teachers.