Educ Inf Technol

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-017-9661-7

Teachers’ perceptions towards using Web 2.0 in language

learning and teaching

Rdouan Faizi 1

Received: 26 May 2017 / Accepted: 18 October 2017

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017

Abstract This paper aims at exploring the perceptions of teachers towards using Web
2.0 in language learning and teaching. To this end, a study was carried out among
language teachers serving in different Moroccan higher education institutions. The
result of the research study demonstrated that just like students, instructors are also
immersed in these web-based applications and have recourse to them for both personal
and educational reasons. However, it has been noticed that though the vast majority of
the surveyed teachers claimed that Web 2.0 technologies have a positive impact on
language teaching and learning, many of them are still reluctant in effectively incor-
porating them in education settings. Indeed, it was found out that less than 15% of the
respondents use these platforms to interact with students and no more than 2.4% of the
subjects are actively involved in creating educational content and uploading it on Web
2.0 applications. However, given the various benefits of these online communities, we
recommend that more teachers should embrace them as fully as possible to support
classroom goals.

Keywords Web 2.0 . Language . Learning . Teaching . Faculty . Higher education .

Morocco . Survey

1 Introduction

In the last few years, the Internet has witnessed an exponential growth and has evolved
from a read-only information repository into a read-write platform. In the past, most of
the content was created by web professionals. The web was simply a portal where
common users passively receive web pages without being given the opportunity to post
reviews, comments, or to give feedback. Today, the web has turned into a read-write

* Rdouan Faizi
[email protected]

1
ENSIAS, Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco
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venue for participation, collaboration, information sharing and social interaction. In

contrast to the Breadable^ phase of the Internet (i.e. Web 1.0) in which people were
limited to the passive viewing of flat data, Web 2.0, which represents a paradigm shift
in how people use the Internet, emphasizes user-generated content, usability, and
interoperability. Rather than being simple consumers of knowledge and information,
Internet users are now content creators and the primary drivers of this emerging
participatory culture (Lin 2007).
This transition from simple static HTML web pages to a more dynamic and
participatory web has resulted in the emergence of a set of Web 2.0 technologies or
social media platforms. These applications, which are inexpensive or even free and
available to individuals who have Internet access, are of different types and functions,
but all share the common characteristic of enabling people to create, share, collaborate,
communicate and consume content (Harris and Rea 2009). Unlike other types of online
platforms, Web 2.0 technologies do not require any web design expertise or publishing
skills. As such, they make it easy for people to create and publish or communicate their
content to the whole world.
Web 2.0 platforms can be classified into three major categories. The first category
includes social networks such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter.
All these serve as online social communities through which people connect and interact
with each other. The second category is composed of content sharing and organizing
online platforms as YouTube, Dailymotion, Dropbox, Slideshare, Reddit, Digg, Deli-
cious, and RSS readers. The third category contains content production and editing
websites such as discussion forums, Wiki, Blogger, Google Docs, and WordPress.
However, the functions and features of each of these Web 2.0 platforms often overlap,
thus, making a technological application appropriate for more than one category.
These technologies are widely used by millions of people across different fields and
for a variety of purposes. As such, they have completely revolutionized the way in
which individuals communicate with each other as well as the way in which institu-
tions, businesses and organizations interact with both internal and external stake-
holders. The way these technologies have impacted our personal and professional lives
is far greater than most of us could have anticipated. However, one of the issues that we
need to shed light on in this work is the potential impact that these Web 2.0 technol-
ogies have on education, and especially on language learning and teaching. The main
reason behind the choice of this field is mainly due to the fact that it has been noticed
that the majority of social media users globally are teens and young adults (Statista
2014; Knight-McCord et al. 2016). These users, most of whom are likely to be
students, are immersed in these web applications and resort to them for a multitude
of reasons (Eteokleous-Grigoriou and Ktoridou 2014). They use them to view what
others are doing, stay updated on current events, keep in touch with friends and family,
do research, and most importantly to learn (Hrastinski and Aghaee 2012; Faizi et al.
2015; Faizi and El Fkihi 2016a; Doleck et al. 2017). Many studies have, actually,
shown that students consider these online social communities as key resources for them
across all disciplines and subjects and view them as effective educational technologies
that help them broaden and deepen their knowledge in their specific areas of studies.
Nonetheless, despite the positive impact that students feel these Web 2.0 technologies
have on their learning, little research has been done on how teachers perceive the
usefulness and validity of using these new digital technologies in education in general
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and in language teaching and learning in particular. In fact, though a lot of research
studies have demonstrated the teachers’ positive attitudes towards online instruction in
general (Benson et al. 2011; Dashtestani 2014; Murday et al. 2008; Puteh 2002; Shin
and Son 2007; Woo and Reeves 2007) and towards the use of single social media
technologies (e.g. Facebook or Twitter) (Salmon et al. 2015; June et al. 2015; Karal
et al. 2017) in formal educational contexts, the faculty members’ perceptions of using
Web 2.0 platforms for language and teaching purposes in both formal and informal
educational settings has not thoroughly been investigated.
The objective of this paper is, therefore, to explore how faculty members perceive
the use of Web 2.0 technologies for language learning and teaching purposes. The
remainder of this article is structured as follows. In Section 2, we outline the potential
advantages and disadvantages of using these online technologies in education, mainly
in language learning. Section 3 presents the results of a study we undertook to examine
language teachers’ perceptions towards using these web-based applications for educa-
tional purposes. Finally, Section 4 gives a brief conclusion.

2 Web 2.0 technologies and language learning: Potential advantages

With the emergence of the world as a global village in which people are communicating
with each other in different parts of the planet, learning foreign languages has become
of utmost importance. In actual fact, success today depends to a large extent on the
ability of an individual to function in this globalized world whose members speak a
variety of languages.
Given the importance of foreign languages, students have started resorting to Web
2.0 technologies to enhance their language and communication skills. In fact, instead of
just being confined to classical learning contexts, many students are now using social
media as potential technologies that can help them improve their foreign language
learning. Thanks to these applications, students and language learners have more
opportunities that go beyond the classroom walls to practice their language and
communication skills (Faizi et al. 2014).
A general overview of research studies conducted on the use Web 2.0 technolo-
gies in education settings has proven that these web applications have many
potential advantages (Manca and Ranieri 2016; Sobaih et al. 2016; Chugh and
Ruhi 2017). Indeed, it has been noticed that the new digital platforms help build a
strong sense of community, promote interaction and communication between instruc-
tors and students both within or between classes and provides students with enough
opportunities to connect with classmates and get engaged in cooperative and collab-
orative learning despite being separated in space and time (LeNoue et al. 2011). Web
2.0 platforms operate as open spaces where students interact, reflect, exchange ideas,
and expand their knowledge base. By using these digital technologies, students can,
at any time, post questions about any problem they may encounter while learning,
and can get answers or feedback from teachers or peers in a matter of minutes. For
their part, teachers can, via these online communities, answer students’ queries,
assign or correct homework and provide tutorials for students who are having
difficulties. All these interactions reinforce the achievement of desirable learning
outcomes (Yu et al. 2010).
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These internet-based technologies are also found out to be an effective way to

promote students’ engagement and retention (Annetta et al. 2009; Chen et al. 2010;
Junco 2012). These technologies can be used to encourage students invest both time
and energy in interacting with others through educationally purposeful activities (Kuh
2003; Rutherford 2012). As such, they can enable lazy, shy, intimidated or bored
students to share ideas and to express their opinions in a more comfortable way. Web
2.0 technologies are new and have proved to be exciting for anyone. They have the
potential to create interactive learning environments in which learners are engaged in
managing their own learning. Incorporating these technologies into the classroom and
beyond school walls helps bring curricula to life for the students who are using them.
Having fun while learning will certainly keep students engaged and focused on learning
materials.
A further educational advantage of these applications is that they promote collabo-
ration because they provide teachers and students with a unique destination where they
can remotely share insights and discuss projects. Today, knowledge is no longer an
individual but a collective process. Thanks to the new media, projects, tasks and papers
can be created on a collective scale by co-operation. Through these platforms, syn-
chronous or asynchronous collaboration supports a constructivist approach to learning,
in which both students and educators work together to co-produce knowledge, rather
than an approach that emphasizes individual contributions (Stevens 2009). Wikis and
discussion forums, for instance, facilitate cooperation and collaborative knowledge
building (Cress and Kimmerle 2007). This collaborative production of knowledge
contributes in reinforcing learning processes and fostering deep learning.
Taking all these educational benefits into consideration, Web 2.0 technologies can
serve as ideal environments for learning and teaching languages. Thanks to the various
features that they incorporate, these social applications can make language learning or
teaching an easier process by being fun, interactive and interesting. The online plat-
forms that help people connect with each other can also be used to make language
learning faster and more engaging.
Via Web 2.0 applications all language learners can get in touch with native speakers
of a variety of languages. Even though basic vocabulary and grammar rules can be well
learnt from teachers who are usually non-native speakers, and no matter what language
exercises or activities might be done in class, students may still need more opportunities
to enhance their listening and speaking skills. This is so because class activities and
discussion topics are not actual real-life situations. By contrast, Web 2.0 platforms,
characterized by the constant availability of native ‘instructors’, provide a live experi-
ence in which a student or language learner can practice his/her target language in real
time. This is actually where the web supplements real life and offers alternative ways
for learning languages. Given this fact, the language learner can, through Web 2.0, turn
a laborious task like studying into something enjoyable by meeting and interacting with
native language speakers from around the world.
With or without their teacher’s recommendations, students can access a social
language learning network where they can get an answer to most of their questions,
without having to go through the anxiety of asking it in class. Social networking
websites, such as Facebook and Twitter are ideal spaces where a person can practice
his/her language skills with real native speakers. Besides these free online networks,
there are specifically designed web-based language learning communities that offer
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interactive lessons, exercises and tests as well as audio and video resources in many
languages. Users can, for instance, write a paragraph or an essay in a given language
such as English or French and have a native speaker in the network correct it.
Despite the educational benefits that Web 2.0 technologies have been praised for, some
educators argue that these digital platforms ruin students’ writings (Purcell et al. 2013).
However, research has demonstrated that authoring technologies, namely discussion
forums, blogs and wiki spaces, are taking a more predominant role in language learning.
In fact, by using social media, students are more exposed to different opinions and wider
audiences and are given an opportunity to get engaged with language in a setting outside
the classroom, which can help improve their reading, writing, and discussion skills
through cooperative writing and reading opportunities. Before the Internet, writing was
a solitary activity. Most students often see themselves as writing only to one person,
namely the teacher. But in this new wave of virtual social environments, writing has
become a very social way to communicate. With just a single post, a student can now
reach thousands of people. As such, students always put in much more efforts into their
writings because they assume that what they write will be for a wider audience.
Media sharing platforms such as YouTube and Dailymotion are also valuable
resources through which multiple language skills can be learnt or taught. This set of
online technologies, actually, has the potential to create a learning community where
everyone has a voice (Duffy 2008). Using them either inside or outside the classroom
can enhance conversation, listening, and pronunciation skills. YouTube videos can also
be used to stimulate cultural lessons, enhance exposure to world languages, and to
promote vocabulary development. These online channels enable students to get ex-
posed to authentic language and foster a learning style that is more autonomous and
student-centered (Watkins and Wilkins 2011). Given this fact, video sharing platforms
offer endless opportunities for formal and informal student-centered language learning.
Beyond just getting materials from this type of social media technologies, language
learners can also broadcast themselves. By producing their own videos, students can
apply the target language to real-world situations, and by uploading them on the
Internet, they can get feedback on their speaking skills from others. Creating student-
generated materials such as videos or podcasts, thus, generating language, is an
important part of the language acquisition process (Chartrand 2012; Swain 2005).

3 Language teachers’ use of Web 2.0

Having detailed the potential benefits of using Web 2.0 technologies in education and
in language learning in particular, the purpose of the present section is to investigate
how language instructors perceive the use of these digital social platforms for language
learning and teaching purposes.

3.1 Research methodology

To examine the potential impact that Web 2.0 has on enhancing language teaching and
learning, a research study was undertaken to explore how teachers make use of these
technologies and how they view the role that these digital technologies may play in
enriching the teaching and learning experiences. To this end, the web-based anonymous
 Educ Inf Technol

questionnaire that we designed was submitted to a group of higher education language

teachers. Our choice of an Internet-based rather than a paper survey was based on the
fact that the former allows to reach a large number of participants and makes data
collection and processing easier (Wyatt 2000).
The questionnaire, which generated both qualitative and quantitative data, was
composed of three main parts. The first part was concerned with collecting demograph-
ic information, namely age, teaching experience and inn. The second part focused on
the subjects’ use and usage of Web 2.0 technologies. The third part was devoted to
gathering data about the teachers’ perceptions towards using these technologies for
language learning and teaching purposes.
The survey’s target population was language teachers from different Moroccan public
and private higher education institutions. A link to the questionnaire was sent via e-mail in
December 2016 to about 137 teachers. A total of 90 participants returned the questionnaire.
Their age ranged from 31 to 57 and their teaching experience varied between 6 and 35 years.

3.2 Data processing

To investigate the teachers’ attitudes towards the use of Web 2.0 technologies, the
faculty members were firstly asked to select, from a predefined list, the social networks
that they are members of. Analysis of the data obtained from the questionnaire showed
that 97.7% of the surveyed language teachers have a profile in at least one social
networking website. The most frequently visited social networks among the partici-
pants are Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Viadeo and Twitter.
In addition to this range of virtual online communities, it was revealed that the
participants in the survey use another variety of digital platforms, namely media sharing
platforms, discussion forums, blogs and wikis. To find out the usage frequency of all
Web 2.0 technologies, the respondents were then asked how often they use them. The
teachers were told to select one of the following three options: ‘often’, ‘rarely’ or
‘never’. The results are illustrated in Fig. 1 below.

2.3%

33.3%

Oen
Rarely
Never

64.4%

Fig. 1 Usage frequency of Web 2.0 technologies

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As shown in Fig. 1, the great majority of the participants in the survey (64.4%) pointed
out that they often use these applications. Nevertheless, 33.3% of the informants claimed
that they rarely use these technologies. Only 2.3% said they do not use Web 2.0
technologies at all. Note, however, that no distinction was observed between male and
female instructors. Still, it was noticed that younger or less experienced teachers use these
online social communities more often that older or more experienced faculty members.
Moreover, though the main reason behind using these social media platforms may vary
from one person to another, all the informants mentioned that they use them for both
personal and educational reasons. This actually reflects the importance of these online
platforms. However, of all Web 2.0 technologies, the most widely used platforms are
social networks, media sharing websites, online forums, blogs and wikis, respectively.
To have a clear idea on the kind of impact that Web 2.0 technologies have on both
teaching and learning, the surveyed teachers were asked to choose either ‘very positive
effect’, ‘positive effect’, ‘no effect’, ‘negative effect’ or ‘very negative effect’. The
findings related to the impact of these online technologies on teaching are shown in Fig. 2.
As seen in Fig. 2, 82.2% of the teachers emphasized that Web 2.0 technologies have
a positive impact on teaching as they provide them with teaching and learning materials
and enable them to prepare lesson notes and exams. This means that these technologies
are capable of enriching the teaching experience of the respondents. Very few teachers
(6.7%), however, argued that these internet-based platforms affect teaching negatively.
11.1% revealed that no effect, be it positive or negative, is felt.
Concerning the effect of Web 2.0 technologies on students’ learning, the majority of
the teachers acknowledged that it is positive as these digital technologies broaden
students’ understanding of different subject matters. Nonetheless, 11.1% of the respon-
dents noted that these online social applications negatively impact students’ learning
experience as is shown in Fig. 3.
When the teachers were asked whether the Web 2.0 technologies could help students
improve their language and communication skills, 33.3% ‘strongly agree’ that these
technologies do, in fact, enable language learners to enhance their skills. 48.9%
‘somewhat agree’ while the rest of the respondents (i.e. 17.7%) disagree with the fact

Very posive effect 13.3%

Posive effect 68.9%

No effect 11.1%

Negave effect 6.7%

Very negave effect 0%

Fig. 2 Impact of Web 2.0 on teaching

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Very posive effect 10.1%

Posive effect 72.1%

No effect 6.7%

Negave effect 11.1%

Very negave effect 0%

Fig. 3 Impact of Web 2.0 on students’ learning

that these online technologies may contribute to promoting language learning. This is
illustrated in Fig. 4.
Even if the great majority of the interviewed teachers agree that Web 2.0 technol-
ogies present potential benefits for language teachers and learners, some instructors still
feel that the use of these technologies in education is still questionable.
To investigate the teachers’ perceptions of the relative impact that Web 2.0 has on
improving each of the four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading, and
writing, the faculty members who thought that the new media technologies could boost
the students’ language skills were asked to rank these skills based on their degree of
improvement, with 1 being the most important language skill that students could
improve and 4 being the least important enhanced skill. Figure 5 below summarizes
the mean rankings associated with each language skill.
As Fig. 5 shows, the major language skill that is reported to be improving is reading
(35%). Indeed, through Web 2.0 technologies, students can read an assortment of
messages and articles. In this way, they can learn new words, turns of phrase and

Strongly disagree 4.4%

Somewhat disagree 13.3%

Somewhat agree 48.9%

Strongly agree 33.4%

Fig. 4 Teachers’ views as the potential of Web 2.0 to enhance students’ language skills
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35.00%
33.00%

21.00%

11.00%

Reading Listening Speaking Wring

Fig. 5 Teachers’ mean rankings for each of the four language skills

jargon, which help them to improve their vocabulary and, thus, their reading proficien-
cy. Listening is viewed to be the second major language skill that students can enhance.
Compared to classroom-based environments that are characterized by the scarcity of
listening activities, Web 2.0 platforms feature an abundant variety of audio and video
materials. This may be behind the enhancement of the students’ listening skills.
Speaking and writing are, however, associated with the lowest ratings.
Regarding the use of Web 2.0 platforms for interacting with students, the findings
indicated that only 14.5% of the teachers confirmed they help foster the language
learners’ skills via these online communities. The rest of the informants (i.e. 85.5%)
admitted that they do not interact with students online.
To check whether they are content creators or just knowledge consumers, the
interviewed teachers were asked about their contributions and activities on Web 2.0
technologies. The study revealed that their contributions were mainly limited to provid-
ing students with links to video or audio resources (51.1%), giving assignments (20%),
answering students’ questions (15.6%), posting comments (13.3%), etc. Nevertheless,
of all the teachers, only 2.4% were found to be actively involved in creating educational
content and uploading it on the Web. Rather than just giving students links to educa-
tional resources created by others, these faculty members stated that they post their
learning materials and resources such as lessons, tutorials, tests, past exams, answers to
exercises, as well as any piece of information that might be useful to students.
When asked whether Web 2.0 technologies could be a good alternative to face-to-
face teaching/learning, only 2.2% of the respondents claimed to ‘strongly agree’ while
28.9% of the teachers ‘somewhat agree’. By contrast, 68.9% of the teachers noted that
Web 2.0 technologies cannot take the place of face-to-face teaching or learning.
The findings above clearly demonstrate that despite the educational benefits of Web
2.0 technologies, many teachers are still reluctant or not yet equipped with the requisite
skills, support and positive attitudes towards making efficient use of these technologies.
Many studies have, actually, confirmed that there are many obstacles that hinder the full
integration of these social online communities and technology in general in education
settings (Kale and Goh 2014; Kafyulilo et al. 2016; Faizi and El Fkihi 2016b). The
impediments that are often mentioned concern both the time and efforts related to the
use of these platforms in teaching, the teachers’ ICT incompetence, the lack of reliable
 Educ Inf Technol

ICT infrastructure and technical support, as well as the fear that the line between faculty
members and students can get blurry.
However, given that the use of Web 2.0 technologies for learning and teaching
represents a strategic shift to enhance pedagogical outcomes (Chugh and Ruhi 2017),
all the above-mentioned obstacles should be addressed by higher education institutions
before faculty will be willing to embrace these technologies for teaching. Teachers
should also know that chalk and talk do no fit the expectations of tech-savvy students
anymore. Today, teachers have to accompany their students in their learning process,
teach them how to collect, analyze, criticize and communicate information. In this way,
the role of a twenty-first century teacher is getting more and more complex and
multifaceted. Accordingly, training seems to be an essential means to get them prepared
for this new task (Jouneau-Sion and Sanchez 2013).

4 Conclusion

The objective of this paper was to investigate the attitudes and perceptions of teachers
towards using Web 2.0 technologies in language learning and teaching. For this purpose,
a research study was undertaken among Moroccan higher education language teachers.
The findings of the study revealed that just like students, faculty members are immersed
in these online applications and resort to them for personal and educational reasons.
However, even if the overwhelming majority of the teachers who participated in the
study argued that these Web 2.0 technologies have a positive impact on both teaching
and learning, they are not keen on bringing them into their classrooms. In fact, less than
15% of the respondents noted that they use these platforms to interact with students.
Concerning the contributions of the teachers on these web-based applications, it has
been noticed that only 2.4% of the subjects create educational content and upload it on
the Web. For the rest of those who interact online with the students, communication is
confined to posting links to educational resources uploaded by other Internet users.
Despite the reluctance of a lot of language teachers to make efficient use of Web 2.0,
we strongly believe that these technologies will certainly contribute to the development
of new teaching and learning modes that are likely to revolutionize education settings.
Consequently, we recommend that teachers embrace these online platforms as fully as
possible to support classroom objectives.

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