Three Teachers’ Initial Efforts to Use Twitter for Teaching English in Public Schools

Abstract

Twitter is perhaps the most widely recognized social network services (SNSs) worldwide. This study attends to the value of Twitter from the EFL pedagogical perspective. The purpose of this study is to investigate how three Korean English teachers in an elementary, middle, and high school used Twitter for three weeks with their students. The qualitative case study yielded findings particularly with regard to the teachers’ use of patterns, interaction with students, and perceptions on using Twitter for instruction by analyzing the teachers’ tweets, interviews, and their students’ postings. The teachers employed microblogging differently depending on their students’ ages, computer experience, their L2 belief, and perceptions concerning the use of technology in the classroom. Interaction patterns with their students also were noticeably different when using Twitter. However, the three teachers agreed that Twitter enables good writing practice for students of any age and provides a great opportunity for them to use English for authentic purposes spontaneously.