Conference+Reflection+by+Betül+İlhan

I chose the conference session called ‘Facebook, Friend or Foe’ by Evelina Miscin and the reason for me to do that I got attracted by the title and wondered how Facebook could possibly be used in an educational setting. At the beginning of the session, Evelina tells that their school uses a website, however the students do not check it often so she cannot contact with them through that website and after having been offered by his students to use Facebook for that kind of educational purposes, she started to think how to use Facebook to teach English her students efficiently. Then, she talked about the advantages of Facebook and the first advantage, is increasing the students’ vocabulary knowledge. While talking about this advantage, she shows some funny words like defriend, fakester, meformer, pity friend, social swarming etc. which are all Facebook terminology. It is fun and free to use. It helps the teacher to remember the names of the student, to reach them easily, to remind important events to them, to post course materials, it involves shy students and helps them socialize, and it provides collaborative learning. These are some of the advantages according to Evelina. When it comes to the disadvantages, she talks about privacy and time management and she adds that she could not find any other. Lastly, she informs the audience about how she uses Facebook for educational purposes. She says that firstly she assigned an administrator for the fake Facebook profile and with the help this student they picked a name for that fake profile. The students added this profile and started to communicate through Facebook in English. They posted their favorite songs there etc. Then Evelina asked her students to interview with that fictional character, prepare a PowerPoint slide about it etc., write a letter to it, write about its past etc. In this way, she made Facebook a useful tool for her students. To be honest, I am mostly against to the usage of that kind of technology as an educational tool, yet Evelina has done something very original and I agree most of her ideas. I believe that most of the students would like to be ‘friends’ with their teacher and using Facebook in such a way can be interesting and motivating for the students. Especially in the schools which do not have a website, it would make the teacher’s job easier. Moreover, it can really help teachers to learn the names of her students, which is a significant issue. We all know that the teacher’s knowing the names of her students is very important from the point of a student. I do not think that the words she showed are very useful for her students, but I believe that using Facebook in English could help them. However, I believe that she underestimates the time management issue. She states that time passes by while checking Facebook but she talks about the way she uses it for education so proudly. However, I consider that Facebook could cost much more time not only for the teacher but also the students than Evelina thinks because even the students who do have a Facebook account are forced and encouraged to have one, in this way. All in all, this session was a helpful and interesting one. I believe that Facebook can be used for educational purposes in all levels of English language classes in Turkey and it would help to motivate students and improve their language.
 * REFLECTION ON A CONFERENCE FROM IATEFL 2012 GLASGOW **

Betül İLHAN

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Yun Ding: Betul, this topic is very interesting! I have never thought to teach English via Facebook. I have to admit that i am not very much addicted to social net-work websites, so i have no idea how much time do people spend on them. Moreover, as you have said the terminologies were not very useful for the students, but speaking in English on the net is something that can be done. While students are typing on Facebook, they are actually producing and using English as a tool of communication, i am sure they will improve their typing skills as well as writing, however, teacher should correct them with wrong spellings and grammar since some of them might use web-languages in writing comments on the net.