“Emotions and Cultural Awareness in EFL Learning via Blogs, Facebook and Skype”

The extensive literature available on the prospects, methods and outcomes of
the use of the Internet for language teaching and learning witnesses to how teachers
and students alike quickly acknowledged the potential of the Web and its impact
on classroom activities in a globalized world. The use of the Internet has undoubtedly
amplified the exposure to English not just of students, but also of anyone
who regularly surfs the web. In the case of EFL students, this increased exposure
inevitably becomes a key factor in the acquisition of the language, not so
much in terms of self-study materials available online, but rather as a chance to use
the Internet to effectively engage in authentic communication, both within and
outside virtual classrooms. The Internet can thus become a precious ally for teachers,
who can use it to mobilize affective dynamics that help students handle the
emotional load inevitably associated to the process of language learning.
This paper reports preliminary observations on three Internet-based activities
that involved third-year students of English in the BA course in Comparative Literature
at the Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” (academic year 2012-2013). The first one is a blog set up by language instructors to upload course materials,
help students who are temporarily abroad, and update students who don’t
attend classes regularly. The second one is a Facebook group started by the students
themselves, who invited their teachers to join it and take part in their online
conversations in English. The third one is a project involving a selected group of
students from this course and a group of students of Italian at Boston College
(MA). The project consisted of a series of scheduled sessions of one-to-one bilingual
conversations carried out using Skype videoconferences.
The data on the quantity and quality of student’s participation in the three activities
show an increasing level of personal involvement from the blog to Facebook,
and reaches a predictable peak in the Skype-based project. Though this can
be seen as quite unsurprising, one element of interest lies in the way students
tended to transfer content from the blog to the Facebook group, appropriating it
and changing their emotional relationship to it. Another significant shift could be
observed in the Skype-based project, where the students’ higher awareness of
cross-cultural dynamics contributed to their motivation and allowed them to better
appreciate the role of language learning in the course of studies they are pursuing.