University of Pennsylvania Insook Kang and Haewon Cho.

University of Pennsylvania Insook Kang and Haewon Cho

Learner Profile in the Digital Age Digital Natives (Prensky, 2001): Digital Technology and virtual worlds are integral parts of life; they spend 30-40 % of free time online. Generation M (born in early 1980s and late 1990s): Media savvy, Natural multi-taskers (Vie, 2008) The Thumb Tribe: Heavy users of instant communication technologies (Popp, 2007) Web 2.0 technologies: Both creator and consumer of contents in new media The Millennial Generation (Generation Y): Significant users of social network sites such as Facebook (400 mm) and Twitter (50 mm) http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/1107/feature3.html

Facebook It is a fast-growing and the most widely used social network site (2009, www.compete.com): 400 mm users worldwidewww.compete.com No. 1 in the most-visited sites on the web (the 1,000 most-visited sites on the web, Google List, Google and YouTube excluded). Hip, hot and happening site (Vander Veer, 2008) Very high penetration rate in college: 85 % of college students use Facebook (65 % log in daily, 85 % log in at least once a week, 93% log in at least once a month) Facebook has become an integral part of students lives

What do people do with Facebook? Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life. Personal Use Linking to people: Commenting, Chats Sharing whats going on in ones life: Wall-posting, Status-updates Sharing information: Video/picture uploading/exchange Community Building Group of similar interests Discussion wall, forum Business Pages Sharing ones business and products with Facebook users. Interacting with customers Promotion: World-of-mouth, Facebook ads

Using social networking sites in teaching languages: Benefits Exposes students to authentic and rich language inputs Provides opportunities to learn and practice language outside of classroom Provides individualized opportunities to communicate with peers, instructors and native speakers Builds a sense of community, Helpful to build a rapport between an instructor and students, and between students Increases language learner motivation and engagement (Mills, 2009) Promotes socio-pragmatic awareness (Blattner and Fiori, 2009)

Learning honorifics using Facebook Honorification in Korean is difficult to master since it involves multiple factors among the interlocutors such as age, social status, relationship, and formality, etc. Facebook is beneficial in learning Korean honorifics for the following reasons: Meet ACTFL 5Cs communication, culture, comparison, community, and connection To use honorifics more in a practical setting with native speakers and peers To give students more concrete concept of honorification provided by profile picture id and relationships More fun by learning through the most popular social networking community tool

Research Questions 1. Is Facebook useful in learning Korean honorifics and honorific speech style in writing? 2. What are the advantages and challenges of using Facebook? 3. What is the students attitude toward using Facebook in Korean class?

Method As a part of class requirements, students interacted on Facebook 1-2 times per week in the 2 nd semester of beginning Korean II and advanced Korean II. Period: 1.5 months (beginning) and 3 months (advanced) toward the end of the semester Participants: Beginning IIAdvanced II StudentsNH: 3, H:4NH:1, H: 8 Native Speaker Participants 3 Teachers, 3 TAs at Kyunghee Univ. 9 Graduate Students at Kyunghee Univ.

Procedure A series of assignments/activities which focused on different aspects of 5Cs were given to students to interact on Facebook. Students were asked to use appropriate honorific speech styles in their postings. Students took a pre-test on recognition and production of honorifics (subject honorification and honorific expressions) before they engaged in Facebook interaction. The same post test was given to see if students knowledge on Korean honorifics had improved in the end of the semester. A survey was also conducted to find out students opinion on their use of Facebook in learning Korean honorifics and in general.

Facebook in Korean Class: Intro Intro Session Create a new account in Facebook Change a language setting to Korean Create a personal profile Invite friends Provide a handout of Facebook jargon

Profile (Advanced)

Focus on Communication: Interpersonal : wall-posting/ commenting (Beginning) feedback practice of a specific grammar item: eg.

Focus on Communication: Interpersonal : Status Update/commenting (Advanced) Wall posting/Status Update 1 time per week 2 comments per week

Focus on Communication: Interpersonal - (Beginning) Making friends with Korean teachers in Korea

Focus on Communication: Interpersonal - (Advanced) Making friends with Korean students in Korea Beginning from late March Grad students at Kyunghee University Linguistic feedback, modeling

Focus on Communication: Interpretive -Final PT (Advanced) Final project Current issues in Korea As a part of research, students asked for NS friends inputs on their topics. Students included the information they got from NS friends in the final PT and paper.

Focus on Communication: Presentational - (Beginning) Topics: My family, my last spring break, spring pictures etc. Read friends postings Write at least 2 comments

Composition Post updated composition/short writings to NOTES Read friends postings and write at least 2 comments Focus on Communication: Presentational - Posting Composition to Notes (Advanced)

Focus on Comparison - Video posting: Korean commercials vs. American commercials (Advanced) Students posted their favorite commercial to the Wall. In class, students compared Korean and American ads and discussed similarities and differences.

Focus on Communities: Making new friends (Advanced) Making friends with Korean students at Kyunghee Univ. and peer students in the other class

Focus Connection/ Culture: - Final PT (Advanced) Final project Current issues in Korean society As a part of research, students asked questions of their interests to NS friends. Students included the information they got from NS friends to the final PT and paper. Connection to other disciplines (education, social issue, etc.) Learn culture in current Korea

Focus Connection/ Culture: - Final Project (Advanced) Final project Current issues in Korea Connection to other disciplines (education, social issue, etc.) Learn up to date culture of Korea

Focus on culture, comparison, and connection: Reading others postings (Beginning)

Error Correction Beginning Korean II Individual correction in comments In class error correction: copy and paste comments in word.doc and correct errors in class Advanced Korean II One brief honorific review session offered Each student was given a collection of their writings with critical errors including honorification errors marked. Students were asked to self-correct errors and revise their posts. An individually customized error correction section was added to each test.

Example of teacher feedback (Beginning) feedback

Enhancing 5Cs through Facebook Wall posting, Status-updating, Commenting, Chatting, Image uploading Making new friends, Creating a group Posts on the topics of current events Korean vs. American commercials Inputs from native speakers, postings related to Korean culture

Result In-class survey: Facebook usage- frequency BeginningAdvanced Wall posting CommentingNotes Uploading imagesStatus Updates, Commenting Status updatesUploading images NotesFacebook chat

Result: Language Use Beginning II Honorifics were used when addressing to instructors, native speakers, and their parents Students used informal polite ending in comments and wall postings Students tried plain form when chatting with classmates and wall posting Advanced II Honorifics were used when addressing to instructors, native speakers, and their parents The informal polite ending was mostly used in commenting, wall posting, and status updates. The formal polite ending was frequently used in video/image postings on the Wall. Native speakers used both and endings. The plain speech style ending was used in composition postings.

Student Survey on Facebook use - Attention 1 Never, 2 Rarely, 3 Sometimes, 4 Frequently, 5 always

Student Survey on Facebook use Helpful?

Student Survey: what did you like about using Facebook? Beginning Level Helped us look what modern Korean language looked like Interaction with native Koreans Helped me use Korean in more natural setting (outside of classroom) Adding pictures and commenting on them. Advanced Level A good way to interact with others An opportunity to practice writing and learn about other students perspectives More practical language usage in more natural setting Easily accessible Liked working at other peoples photos.

Student Survey: What did you like least about using facebook? Beginning Level Hard to keep up with more than one post per week. Difficult to look up words to form responses Unable to navigate Typing Advanced Level Difficult to think of creative things to say on my wall Quite a hassle, forced interaction with people Hard to maintain, confusing Forgot to check the Korean one because of the English one

Acquisition of honorific expressions and ( ) - Pre-test and Post-test result (Total) 58.1 69.5 62.6 69.3 11.4 pt 6.7 pt Beg Adv

20.7 pt 2.6 pt 8.8 pt 5.8 pt Acquisition of honorific expressions and ( ) - Pre-test and Post-test result (Recognition vs. Production)

Pre-test and Post-test result: - Discussion Beginning level students paid more attention to honorific usage while advanced level students paid more attention to grammatical accuracy Overall, beginning level students seemed to have more positive attitude toward the effectiveness of Facebook use in improving their knowledge on honorifics and accuracy on grammar. Students post test scores on honorifics increased in both levels(11.4 points for beginning, 6.7 points for advanced). Especially, the recognition score was significantly improved by 20.7 points in the beginning level which had on-going honorific practices in class. While only one honorific review session was provided, there were increases in the post test scores in both recognition (8.8) and production (5.8) scores in advanced II learners.

Discussion: Using Facebook - Benefits To teach honorifics and honorific speech styles Provides authentic contexts, gives more practicality Receives authentic inputs from native speakers (modeling) Supplements classroom instructions Helpful to improve students pragmatic competence Makes learning more exciting, dynamic, and engaging Provides more effective error correction for beginning class Other benefits Provides challenges: I + 1 (new vocabulary items and structures) Provides a sense of community Fosters students creativity Helpful for students to practice both informal and formal languages Helpful for students to learn how Korean people actually interact on the social networking media Provides real time language and culture of current Korea

Discussion: Using Facebook - Challenges to teach honorifics and honorific speech styles Error correction Requires instructors intervention Difficult to create an activity which includes honorifics Some students tend to avoid using difficult structures and honorifics. Need a detailed guidelines, reminder Somewhat artificial Other issues Privacy issues: digital personal space Conflict between English and Korean Facebooks

Implications/Suggestions Facebook offers students the opportunities to model and practice Korean honorification and thus is helpful to improve their pragmatic competence. The use of Facebook possibly increases students motivation to learn due to its authenticity and entertaining nature. Facebook activities should be well designed to meet students and curriculum needs (5 Cs). Precise guidelines including appropriate frequency of participation and supervision are required. Facebook can be used even in the beginning level. Even with their limited linguistic ability, Facebook helps beginning level students to internalize honorific usage better through a variety of activities and actual interaction with NS. More studies should be done to examine the effectiveness of Facebook and other social media sites to teach or learn foreign languages.

References http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook Blattner, G. and Fiori, F. (2009) Facebook in the Language Classroom: Promises and Possibilities. International Journal of Instructional Technology ad Distance Learning, Vol. 6 (1). Mendez, J. et al. (2009). To Friend or Not to Friend: Academic Interaction on Facebook. International Journal of Instructional Technology ad Distance Learning, Vol. 6 (9). Mills, N. (2009) Facebook and the use of social networking tools to enhance language learner motivation and engagement. NEALLT conference, Yale University, New haven, CT. Popp, Trey (2007). Digital Nativeds in tomorrows Classroom. The Penn Gazette Prensky, M (2008). The Role of Technology in Teaching and the Classroom, Educational Technology Prensky, M (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants, Part II: Do you really think differently? On the Horizon. NBC University Press, 9(6). Social Media Usage Statistics 2010. http://www.joesblogg.com/2010/03/social-media-usage-statistics- 2010/http://www.joesblogg.com/2010/03/social-media-usage-statistics- 2010/ Vie, S. (2008) Digital Divide 2.0: Generation M and Online Social Networking Sites in the Composition Classroom. Science Direct: Computer and Composition 25. Ward, D. (2009) Social Networking: a Game Change for Language Learning? Center for Applied Linguistics and Language Education blog http://calleteach.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/social-networking-a-game- changer-for-language-learning/http://calleteach.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/social-networking-a-game- changer-for-language-learning/

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University of Pennsylvania Insook Kang and Haewon Cho.

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