Social media in second and foreign language teaching and learning: Blogs, wikis,

and social networking

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (to appear Nov 18)

Jonathon Reinhardt University of Arizona

[email protected]

This review surveys and synthesizes the findings of 87 focal pieces, published primarily
between 2009 and mid-2018, on the formal and informal use of social media—blogs,
wikis, and social networking—for second and foreign language teaching and learning
(L2TL), including studies on the use of educational sites like Livemocha and Busuu and
vernacular sites like Facebook and Twitter. The article frames the review in the
development of social media and the history of social computer-assisted language
learning research. Synthesis identifies common findings, including that social media can
afford the development of intercultural, sociopragmatic, and audience awareness,
language learner and user identities, and particular literacies. Presentation of the focal
pieces and common findings is intertwined with discussion of problematic issues, and
each section concludes with a summary and implications for future research and practice.

1. Introduction

The Internet has greatly impacted language teaching over the past 20 years, as evidenced
by a substantial and growing body of research in a variety of fields, including language
pedagogy and assessment, second language acquisition, discourse analysis, literacy
studies, computer-mediated communication, and sociolinguistics. The field of computer-
assisted language learning (CALL) in particular has concerned itself with the potential of
the Internet for language learning, starting with the publication of several seminal articles
in the mid 1990s that touted the benefits of computer-mediated classroom discussion (e.g.
Chun 1994; Kern 1995) and intercultural exchange (e.g. Warschauer 1996). While CALL
today spans a range of issues as diverse as online learning, computer adaptive testing,
digital gaming, and corpus linguistics (see recent handbooks edited by Farr & Murray
2016; and Chapelle & Sauro 2017), there has been increasing interest in the social aspect
of Internet use since SLA has made the ‘social turn’ (Firth & Wagner 1997; Block 2003)
and ‘Web 2.0’ technologies, along with expanded broadband and mobile accessibility,
started supporting new ways of social interaction (Lankshear & Knobel 2006;
Warschauer & Grimes 2007). Beginning in the mid 2000s, technologies based on Web
2.0 platforms became popularly known as ‘social media’, including blogs, wikis, social
networking and a variety of related platforms, services, and media technologies.

By 2009, according to Pew Research, half of US adults used social media, up

from one tenth in 2005, and on its way to three quarters after 2015. The year 2009 also
marked a milestone in awareness of social media among CALL practitioners with the

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
publication of two edited volumes: the Handbook of Research on Web 2.0 and Second
Language Learning (Thomas, ed.) by IGI Global, and The Next Generation: Social
Networking and Online Collaboration in Foreign Language Learning (Lomicka & Lord,
eds.) by CALICO. It was the cut off year for a 2012 review of 85 pieces on Web 2.0 in
CALL (Wang & Vasquez 2012), which found an emerging research focus on identity,
collaboration, and community. From 2009 to the time of this writing there has been a
continued increase in publication on social media in CALL focused and other journals
(e.g. Demaizière & Zourou 2012) and in edited volumes (e.g. Lamy & Zourou 2013;
Dixon & Thomas 2015). The purpose of the current article is to synthesize these pieces
and present a state of art review of social media in second and foreign language teaching
and learning (L2TL).

To conduct the review I followed Norris & Ortega’s (2006) procedures for
conducting a research synthesis: 1) identify studies and selection criteria; 2) focus on
variables and data and draw one’s own conclusions, rather than researcher conclusions;
3) examine parameters and categories that cut across studies; and 4) establish super-
ordinate heuristics to synthesize conclusions. To identify studies I searched for associated
keywords (e.g. social media, Web 2.0, blogs, wikis, social networking, Facebook,
Twitter, etc.) in the 2009 to mid-2018 issues of the most well-known journals in CALL:
Language Learning and Technology, CALICO Journal, ReCALL, Computer Assisted
Language Learning, and System. In addition, I searched the aforementioned edited
volumes and special journal issues for key studies prior to 2009. Finally, I checked
bibliographies of the most recent articles and chapters for pieces that may have appeared
in other journals or volumes. I read 160 pieces to identify research strands into which
multiple studies could be categorized over several of the target years. I then chose
empirical studies that I judged to be representative of the identified strands as focal
pieces, as well as a few pedagogical or ‘idea’ pieces that I felt useful to frame a particular
research strand, totaling 87 pieces. While some of the pieces reviewed under these
criteria have low participant numbers or are qualitative in nature, and therefore are not
necessarily replicable or scientifically generalizable, they are still important to consider
because they are empirically grounded and situated in ecologically valid contexts of
implementation. From a phenomenological perspective, consideration of such studies en
masse can perhaps better inform pedagogical theorizing and reflective practice because
their implementational contexts are more relatable than those of large experimental
studies.

The review is divided into three sections: blogs (§2), wikis (§3), and social
networking sites and services (SNSs) (§4), which is subdivided into three sections:
informal SNS-enhanced L2 use and learning (§4.1), SNS-enhanced L2TL pedagogy
(§4.2), and L2TL with SNECSs (social network enhanced commercial CALL sites and
services) (§4.3). There was not enough published empirical research on L2TL with other
social media to identify research strands and trends and thus warrant inclusion here.
Blogs, wikis, and SNSs are the most researched because they have been around the
longest and are most popular, a fact that in no way discounts the necessity for research

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
exploring other social media technologies. Moreover, research on L2TL with other
technologies like podcasting (e.g. Rosell-Aguilar 2013), voice blogging (e.g. Huang
2015), virtual worlds (e.g. Christensen & Christensen 2015) and digital games (e.g.
Thorne & Fischer 2012) was also omitted because their histories and trajectories in
CALL are unique and inclusion here would not do them justice, although they may
arguably involve social media dynamics. Finally, it should be noted there is considerable
work on virtual learning environments, informal learning, digital literacies, and learner
autonomy that overlaps much of what has been presented here and may be referenced,
but is not counted among the focal studies.

1.1. Social media, social networking, and Web 2.0

Since long before inventing the Internet, humans have developed technologies, from
writing to calling cards to the telegraph with which they engage in social networking,
information sharing, and joint creative activity (Standage 2013). In the Internet’s early
days, Usenet and bulletin board systems supported asynchronous discussion and resource
sharing, and graphical webpage software and hosts afforded the creation and hyperlinking
of personal homepages. Early Web-based services like Compuserve and America On Line
offered users a single interface for accessing news, sharing information, and interacting
socially with other network users. In the mid to late 1990s, authors of online personal
journals began hyperlinking their blogs (from ‘weblogs’) with others in what became
known as the ‘blogosphere’. Wikis (from the Hawaiian wiki-wiki for ‘quick’) first
appeared at about the same time as quick means for programmers to share and organize
resources collaboratively. In the mid 2000s, Friendster, MySpace, LinkedIn, and
Facebook launched social networking sites that allowed individuals to create profiles, to
connect to profiles of other users they knew or wanted to know in real life, and to share
content with them. Web services that focused on media creation, curation, and sharing,
like Flickr and Youtube, gradually integrated social networking elements and by the
2010s became understood as ‘social media’.

Some estimates are that as of 2018, nearly a third of our planet’s population, or
2.6 billion people, make some use of social media (Statista 2018). This massive increase
in usage is partially due to the ‘Web 2.0 turn’ in the mid 2000s along with the continued
development of affordable, portable, and accessible digital information and
communication technology. Coined as a retronym, the term Web 2.0 refers to the second
generation of World Wide Web technologies that allowed more user participation and
content sharing than was possible with older Web 1.0 technologies, leading to the
profusion of social media. What we recognize as social media today has roots in the
technologies of computer-mediated communication (CMC), personal homepage
authoring, and cyber-community participation, but it was the capacity of new Web 2.0
technologies starting in the early 2000s to separate content from form that allowed for
users to produce content and articulate networks, giving rise to blogs, wikis, and social
networking sites.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
 While a definition is not entirely agreed upon, social media usually refers to any
application or technology through which users participate in, create, and share media
resources and practices with other users by means of digital networking. Zourou & Lamy
(2013) argue that the lack of clarity leads to confusion of all Internet-mediated social
interaction as social media practice. They borrow Musser et al.’s (2006; in Zourou &
Lamy 2013) description of social media as typified by reuse and sharing of content,
openness in structure allowing easy and expansive use, and network effects or impact
potential of sharing activity. Zhu & Chen (2015) typologize social media as either
profile-based or content-based on one axis, and either personalized message or broadcast
message on the other, resulting in four types or purposes: to connect to others and build
relationships, to collaborate with others, to present or broadcast an identity, or to express
creative activity. Nations (2015) defines social media as typified by features such as user
accounts, profile pages, network articulation, news feeds and notifications,
personalization features, review systems, and feedback systems like ‘upvote’ or ‘like’
buttons. Social networking sites (SNSs) are a type of social media that foreground
personal profile and network activity, while other social media applications usually center
on content curation. Confusion arises because social media applications, including
structured learning applications (see §4.3), are increasingly integrated into SNS interfaces
or enhanced with SNS features, and vice-versa, and often sites and services label
themselves ‘social media’ for marketing purposes and to distinguish themselves from
their competitors—not because they fit a specific definition.

1.2. Social media in CALL

As long as meaningful social interaction has been understood as necessary for language
learning, language educators have sought to integrate a means for communicative
practice into teaching. Some of the first Internet applications for synchronous (chat) and
asynchronous (email and BBS) communicative exchange were identified as having
educational potential, and teachers began implementing them, and researchers
investigating them, as soon as it was logistically feasible. Early empirical research (e.g.
Beauvois 1992; Chun 1994; Kern 1995; see Ortega 1997 for a summary) found evidence
that the various features of CMC led to increased output production, access to a wider
range of discourses, equalized participation, and increased fluency—albeit sometimes at
the expense of accuracy. These potential affordances are still associated with use of social
media in L2TL.

In their research designs, researchers of the social Internet found cognitive and
psycholinguistic frameworks insufficient to account for some of the outcomes of
technology-mediated discussions and telecollaborations (see Reinhardt 2012). Inspired by
the ‘social turn’ in SLA (Firth & Wagner 1997; Block 2003), many turned to socially-
informed theoretical frameworks—for example, sociocultural theory, situated practice,
language socialization, or socio-cognitive frameworks that view language development as
an essentially social phenomenon. In the introductory chapter to their seminal 2000
edited volume Network-based Language Teaching, Kern & Warschauer explained that:

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
 Sociocognitive approaches to CALL shift the dynamic from learners' interaction
with computers to interaction with other humans via the computer. The basis for
this new approach to CALL lies in both theoretical and technological
developments. Theoretically, there has been the broader emphasis on meaningful
interaction in authentic discourse communities. Technologically, there has been
the development of computer networking, which allows the computer to be used
as a vehicle for interactive human communication. (11).

In other words, well before Web 2.0 and popular conceptualizations of social media, L2
educators and researchers found in socially-informed frameworks theoretical grounding
with which to leverage the socio-interactional affordances of Internet-mediated
communication—email, discussion boards, and chat—for the purpose of language
teaching. The potentials for language use and learning, or ‘affordances’ (Gibson 1979;
van Lier 2004), of these tools allowed individual expression through homepage authoring
and participation in ‘cyber-communities’ not bound by physical and temporal immediacy.

Theoretical and methodological foundations for research on what would become

social media continued through the 2000s during the Web 2.0 shift. Work on social media
in sociology, communication studies, and education (see boyd & Ellison 2007 for a
seminal review; also Wilson, Gosling, & Graham 2012) inspired new research in L2TL.
Lam (2000; 2004) argued that social Internet use was socio-literacy practice, in that
online self presentation and identity work were acts of social semiosis involving symbolic
repertoires learned through socialization. In response to Prensky’s (2001) ‘digital natives’
hypothesis, Thorne (2003) offered a sociocultural theoretic interpretation of online
behavior as reflective of contextually contingent ‘cultures of use’. Studies of
telecollaboration identified the potential of CMC for developing intercultural and socio-
pragmatic competences (e.g. Furstenberg et al. 2001; Belz & Kinginger 2002). As social
media tools emerged, Warschauer & Grimes (2007) observed that blogs seemed to
highlight authorship as appropriation and reflected a sort of Bakhtinian dialogism, that
wikis focused on collaborative text production and reflected socialization into discourse
communities, and that social networking de-emphasized authorship and reflected post-
structuralist notions of polyvocality and deconstruction. By 2009, researchers had
rigorous theoretical bases and methodological examples readily available to examine
social media.

While some of the surveyed research is theoretically agnostic, as is sometimes the

case with new CALL research (Blyth 2008), most utilize socially-informed frameworks,
especially social constructivism, along with commensurable methodologies tending
towards the qualitative, emic, and ethnographic. Many use the aforementioned concept of
affordance and several explicitly adopt an ecological framework, which is grounded in
the notion that affordances and constraints for L2 teaching and learning develop from the
dynamic, complex, and emergent interactions of actors and artifacts in a given context.
Some (e.g. Lafford 2009; Reinhardt 2012) have argued that because complexity and non-

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
linearity are central to their definitions, ecological perspectives can more easily
accommodate the dynamic, networked, multimodal, and multi-node nature of social
media use.

2. Blogs

A blog, short for ‘weblog’, is a journal-like website comprised of dated posts, presented
in reverse chronological order, often with threaded comments under each post. Blogs
offer ‘a mixture in unique proportions of links, commentary, and personal thoughts and
essays’ (Blood 2000) and are thus argued to be ideal spaces for the development and
expression of expertise. Blogs are linked to other blogs by their authors, thus creating
networked communities of writers and readers, known collectively as the ‘blogosphere’.
Several genres have emerged over time (Herring et al. 2005, in Warschauer & Grimes
2007), including personal blogs, filter blogs, and knowledge blogs—roughly equivalent
to online diaries, news journals, and topical guides, respectively. While genres differ
according to purpose, audience, and author role, blogging foregrounds the act of
individual, nonymous authorship (as opposed to anonymous—see Zhao, Grasmuck, &
Martin 2008), although some genres, especially filter blogs, allow for multiple authors.

Blogs were arguably the first social media because they were designed to support
interactive readership and multimedia embedding from their inception in the late 1990s.
Once Web 2.0 allowed individuals with no knowledge of coding to create blogs, the
practice boomed—WordPress, only one of many blog hosts, published over 18 million
blogs in 2014 alone (Crum 2015). More recently, however, as interactive personal Web-
based writing has become integrated into social networking and other social media like
Twitter (which is sometimes called ‘microblogging’—see §4), traditional, single-authored
blogging may be waning in general popularity and becoming a niche practice.

Still, as has been noted by many L2 educators and researchers, blogging may
continue to hold potential for language learning because of its unique affordances for
writing as social and reflective practice. Early pieces were often speculative and
exploratory, describing potentials not yet empirically examined. Godwin-Jones (2003),
for example, discussed the Web 2.0 origins of blogs and the potential for blogs to serve as
personal journals or portfolios, because they seemed to support reflective learning and the
development of a sense of ownership or authority. Campbell (2003) offered a framework
of blog types for educational application: tutor blogs as instructor-maintained collections
of class references and resources, learner blogs as online journals or portfolios for
individual students, and class blogs as spaces for collaboration and interaction (cf. Alm
2009, §2.1.3).

Other early pedagogical pieces complement discussion of potentials with

examples of application, usually presented in a positive light. As a context for authentic
ESL writing practice, Ward (2004) listed purported affordances, arguing that the
blogosphere offers access to a wide variety of topics and registers and that blogging

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
promotes the development of strategies and skills, like skimming, scanning, and critical
reading. His application illustrates how ESL students can use blogs to respond to news
stories and offer film critiques. In another highly cited early piece, Ducate & Lomicka
(2005) described a project where French learners created a blog to communicate with
each other and family and friends at home during study abroad, and another project
whereby learners used German blogs as input for a variety of reading and writing
activities. Many of the ideas they offered have been since implemented and reported by
others, including reading blogs in the language of study, posting to a shared class blog,
and using blogs as a medium for telecollaborative exchange.

2.1. Notable research on blog-enhanced L2TL

Since the mid 2000s, research on blog-enhanced L2TL has followed several intertwined
strands: 1) blogs as media for culture learning and intercultural exchange, 2) blogs as
spaces for literacy and identity development, the purported affordances of blogs for
developing 3) learner autonomy and 4) audience awareness, and 5) the importance of task
design and learner variables, a thread that emerges from and through other strands.

2.1.1. Culture learning

An important strand of research has recognized that blogs are ideal spaces for culture
learning and intercultural exchange, but present some challenges. For example, Ducate &
Lomicka (2008) had 9 American university age learners of French and 20 of German first
follow and present on specific bloggers from the target culture and then develop and
interact through personal blogs. In their analysis of student work, the researchers found
that some students expressed themselves more freely in the blogs than in class or with
other assignments. Aligning with future findings in work on learner autonomy (cf. Alm
2009, §2.1.3) and issues of task design (cf. Lin, Groom, & Lin 2013; Chih 2015, §2.1.4),
however, Ducate & Lomicka uncovered several challenges, including that students
reported not reading each others’ comments, that some learners complained the target
blogs they read weren’t always topically related to course content, and that some students
wanted more freedom in choosing what to write about on their own blogs.

At the same time, Elola & Oskoz (2008) reported no serious challenges in their
telecollaboration project where L2 Spanish learners in the US interacted with L2 Spanish
learners studying abroad in Spain in small group blogs, with the students abroad acting as
cultural informants. They also found little significant differences in the groups before or
after the experience with regards to both intercultural competence and attitudes towards
blogs as learning tools. In a similar project, Lee (2009) used blogs and podcasts for a
telecollaboration project connecting graduate teacher trainees in Spain with Spanish
learners in the US. Lee found students liked having an authentic audience, but because of
unequal status regarding language proficiency, some students reported a sense of
imbalance—an issue not uncommon to telecollaboration. Lee’s later project (2012)
combined some of Ducate & Lomicka’s (2008) and Elola & Oskoz’ (2008) task designs,

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
as well as ethnography-informed interviews of informants and experts. Lee argued there
was evidence the blogs supported development of critical intercultural awareness,
particularly because students could see how their own perspectives had changed by
comparing old with new entries. Task design may be particularly important when using
blogs as learning spaces for learners studying abroad. Gabaudan (2016) notes the need for
clear task design, guiding rubrics, and consistent teacher feedback, as well as the
importance of scaffolding learners into productive L2 reflective writing practices well
before departure.

Moving beyond pedagogical innovation, other work utilized sophisticated

methods to show evidence for blog-enhanced culture learning, with important
implications. For example, Yang (2011) identified tensions and key events in group blogs
created telecollaboratively by 9 EFL learners in Japan and 20 in Taiwan. She found most
students interpreted the exchanges from commonality perspectives, believing that mutual
understandings and shared interests would lead to rapport, and conversely, that lack of
commonality would mean there was no basis for building it. In contrast, students coming
from relativity perspectives sought connection by interpreting meanings not at face value
but by relating to them, finding commonality on a deeper symbolic level. Yang’s work
shows that whether the blog-enhanced feature of the exchange afforded learning or not is
perhaps beside the point, because blogs (and other social media—cf. §4.1.1) have become
normalized as interactional spaces. In other words, while technology may offer new
means of interaction, it may mislead because of mediational effects (Ware 2005; Kern
2014), and transformative learning outcomes are in no way assured.

2.1.2. Literacy and identity development

Another research strand in blog-enhanced L2TL focuses on the development of academic

literacy and identity, often using qualitative case study methods in the tradition of Lam’s
(e.g. 2000) work on CMC-mediated identity development. In a highly cited early piece,
Bloch (2007) presents evidence that his focal learner, an adolescent heritage English
learner, found space for reflection, self-presentation, and personal expression in the class
blog, and thereby developed critical literacy. Similarly, Gebhard, Shin, & Seger’s (2011)
study shows how a young English learner’s use of a class blog for a range of academic
and social purposes expanded her communicative repertoire, developed literacy skills,
and built meta-linguistic and genre awareness. Also using similar methods and asking
similar questions, Sun & Chang (2012) examined the role of blog-enhanced collaborative
dialogue in developing authorial identity among 7 Taiwanese TESL graduate students.
Analysis of language use that indexed identity and positioning showed learners were very
self-conscious of their inexperience as academic writing novices, questioning their own
competence, but finding inspiration in provided narratives by non-native English
speaking TESL professionals. Also exploring teacher identity development, Arshavskaya
(2017) found that transformative learning can occur when teacher trainees reflect on
triggering episodes and their future identities through blog-enhanced tasks, although

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
some learners may respond better to discussion and more interactive mentorship styles
that blogs do not support.

While methodologically rigorous, the facts that Bloch (2007) and Gebhard et al.
(2011) presented single case studies and that Sun & Chang’s (2012) and Arshavskaya’s
(2017) participants were teacher trainees and thus perhaps self-selected do not necessarily
make the case for wide-scale application of blog-enhanced L2 pedagogy. Still, they serve
to inform practice in relatable situations. Also importantly, even though it was not the
focus of the research, a common implication is that successful blog-enhanced L2
instruction may depend on complex interactions among task designs and learner variables
(cf. §2.1.5). In other words, the most successful blog tasks encourage reflection, self-
presentation, deep knowledge investigation, and development of expertise, but learner
variables like background and experience with technology, as well as task variables like
audience and topic, may impact outcomes.

2.1.3. Learner autonomy

Another strand of research on blog-enhanced L2TL argues that blog-based tasks should
support and develop learner autonomy. For example, Alm (2009) designed blog-
enhanced German instruction with the goal of enhancing learner autonomy. Her design,
informed by self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan 2007, in Alm 2009: 208), sought to
provide optimal challenge and reward, afford social interaction, and promote agency by
allowing students to control privacy settings and decide who their audience would be. In
a similar piece, Guth (2009) described a blog-based ‘personal learning environment’
(PLE) for university EFL learners which could be customized by individual learners,
maximizing learner autonomy and serving as a space for collecting, archiving, and
managing online learning resources. However, unlike a Learning Management System, a
PLE is open source and designed to be portable and extendable beyond one course, thus
promoting informal, autonomous, and lifelong learning.

Later work adds nuance to this understanding with empirical support. For
example, Lin et al. (2013) sought to discover why many students did not blog more than
required by a formal curriculum, and did not continue blogging after instruction. Surveys
of 8 EFL first-year university students showed that they acknowledged the novel,
convenient nature of blogging, but that they were more focused on the assigned, formal
nature of the learning tasks rather than their blog-enhanced quality. They felt blogs
exposed them to new, useful linguistic input, but they also were troubled by perceived
social and time pressure to not make linguistic errors in their posts and to offer peer
feedback. Students found blogging in class to be a distraction from valuable face-to-face
interaction time, but blogging outside of class to be difficult because of other distractions.
To explain the results, the researchers hypothesize that their adolescent students’ low
proficiency and possibly over-familiarity with social media contributed to dissatisfaction.

2.1.4. Blog-enhanced audience awareness

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Another focus of blog-enhanced L2TL research is on development of audience
awareness—argued to be an affordance of other social media as well (cf. §3.1.4). In an
early piece, Raith (2009) compared the paper-based and blog-based journals of 29
adolescent EFL learners for interactive elements and interpersonal language, finding that
the blog writers wrote more, and more interactively. A survey then found evidence the
bloggers had a more developed sense of audience, while the paper journalers were more
concerned with privacy. Arslan & Sahin-Kizli (2010) compared blog-enhanced process
writing instruction with face-to-face process writing. Comparison showed significant
differences in improvement by the experimental group, with the biggest differences in
content and organization. The researchers explain this finding in terms of audience
awareness—that the bloggers benefited from the knowledge of, and experience with, an
expanded audience for their compositions.

However, like the aforementioned nuance that Lin et al.’s (2013) work added to
understandings about learner autonomy, more recent research also implicates task design
in purported affordances for audience awareness. To illustrate, Chen (2015) had 33
Taiwanese university EFL learners keep personal blogs on topics of their choice, and
comment on each others’ blogs. Post-instructional analysis showed that learners as a
whole were most satisfied with epistemic (knowledge-focused) activities involving form
and grammar correction more than social (knower-focused) activities involving
communication and interaction—perhaps because blogs support individual expression
rather than collaboration (Warschauer & Grimes 2007). However, further analysis
showed that results were potentially skewed because the most satisfied learners exhibited
more expertise in the topics of their blogs, and more investment in self-presentation to an
imagined audience, even when their posts received few comments (cf. King 2015,
§3.1.4). Unsatisfied learners felt less invested in, or less qualified to write about, their
blogs’ topics, and were either negatively impacted by audience awareness, like some of
Lee’s (2009, §2.1.1) students, or convinced there was no audience for their blogs,
because they were mere class assignments. In short, tasks that emphasize an external
audience seem to be a double-edged sword, because awareness of that audience can both
empower and intimidate L2 learners.

2.1.5. Blog-enhanced task design and learner variables

Research on blog-enhanced intercultural exchange, literacy and identity development,

learner autonomy, and audience awareness implicates consideration of both task design
and learner variables in realizing the learning affordances of blogs. Dippold’s (2009)
study of peer feedback in blogs illustrates how the two are intertwined. Examining the
quality of blog comments advanced German learners provided each other, the researcher
found they were rarely critical or focused on form because learners were hesitant because
of face issues and insecurities about language abilities. In an advanced academic EFL
course with 11 students, Vurdien (2013) found evidence that well designed blog-
enhanced writing tasks complemented by face-to-face discussion led to self-assessed

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
learning gains. While most students appreciated the compositional and reflection time
afforded by asynchronous pre-writing and feedback tasks, a few disliked their structured,
imposed nature, and felt more open-ended discussion activities related to the current
issues they wrote about would have been more motivating. Implications from Dippold
and Vurdien’s studies are that learners should have some choice in the topical focus of
social media activities, in addition to some control over audience (cf. Chen 2015, §2.1.4)
to alleviate possible face issues.

Chen, Shih, & Liu (2015) focused directly on blog-enhanced L2 learning task
design, which they argue may be responsible for some negative findings, like those of
Krause (2005, in Chen et al.: 286), who found that vague task parameters demotivated
students, blogs were often used where other simpler technologies would do, and blog-
enhanced peer feedback was ineffectual. Working with 17 student dyads in an intra-
national Taiwanese EFL telecollaboration partnership, they compared open and closed
dialogue tasks—the former does not require negotiation or decision making, while the
latter requires a single joint product as an outcome. Closed tasks elicited more frequent
generation of idea units and were preferred by students, even though they felt the blog
was a better medium for open tasks that supported divergent thought and depth of
opinion. In other words, learners themselves recognize when blog-based tasks do not
align with blog affordances, even if the tasks align with their own learning styles and
preferences.

2.1.6. Summary and future directions: Blog-enhanced L2TL

In short, findings from early studies on the affordances of blog-enhanced L2TL have
become more nuanced over time with caveats from later studies, especially regarding task
design and the influence of learner variables. Research has shown some evidence that
blogs may serve as spaces for culture learning and intercultural exchange, as well as for
reflection, self presentation, and the development and expression of deep knowledge and
expertise on topics of which the learner has had some choice. Later research has found
that tasks which force particular topics, require form-focused peer review, overly restrict
or broaden audience, or necessitate closed outcomes may restrict learner autonomy and
not support the learning potentials of blogs, even though those tasks might more align
with curricular objectives and learner expectations.

In the future blogs may continue to serve as learning spaces for writing oneself into
multilingual and intercultural identities. In addition, there are research lacunae on
multimodal composition and digital storytelling, as blogging overlaps and integrates with
image sharing social media like Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr. As new areas are
explored, it should be noted that in general, because of familiarity with everyday social
media, learners may have experiences and dispositions that should be taken into
consideration when designing and implementing instruction. On the other hand, as
blogging becomes a niche practice, like wikis, it may require more explicit instruction, at
the same time its novelty offers advantages as a sort of tabula rasa.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
3. Wikis

According to the Wiktionary, a wiki is ‘a collaborative website which can be

directly edited merely by using a web browser, often by anyone with access to it’. Named
by inventor Ward Cunningham after the Hawaiian word wiki-wiki for ‘quick’ (Wikipedia:
History of wikis), wikis purportedly facilitate collaboration by simplifying contribution,
recording revision histories, and de-emphasizing individual author identities, which
makes them ideal media for multi-authored, highly edited reference documents.
Wikipedia itself, launched in 1998, offers over 7 million entries in nearly 300 languages,
receives over 3 million visits a day, and is updated 10 times every second (Wikipedia:
About Wikipedia). While many wikis are used by closed communities and organizations,
a survey of the 82 open wikis listed on Wikimedia’s ‘List of wikis’ shows encyclopedias,
dictionaries, travel guides, fictional universe guides, gaming guides, manuals, handbooks,
almanacs, and music score repositories—indeed, anything one traditionally finds in the
reference section of a library. Unlike traditional reference works, however, wikis usually
have no centralized editors, and instead rely on contributors for both authoring and
editing.

Warschauer & Grimes (2007) argue that unlike blogs, which highlight self-
presentation, voice, and individual authorship, wikis seem to promote collaborative,
distributed authorship. To generalize, social networking sites (SNSs) and wikis afford
focus on sharing and networking, while blogs promote, but do not necessarily require,
dialogic interaction and collaboration. Blogs and wikis afford resource production and
idea generation, while SNSs allow for focus as much on sharing across networks as on
original production. Because of their designs, blogs and SNSs seem to highlight
individual authorship, while wikis de-emphasize the identities of individual contributors.
Similar to wikis, collaborative documents like Google Docs have emerged as an object of
CALL research recently (e.g. Kessler, Bikowski, & Boggs 2012; Bikowski & Vithanage
2016), but they are not included in this review because unlike wikis, they are not
normally used for public documents or resources and so do not function as social media.
As with blogs, a main social learning affordance argued by wiki-enhanced instruction
advocates is increased audience awareness, since learners recognize their work is publicly
accessible.

When Web 2.0 technologies made wikis a practically feasible reality in the mid
2000s, new perspectives and speculations on their potential for collaborative writing
began to emerge in the literature (Godwin-Jones 2003), based on the state of L2 writing
research at the time. It focused on the learning potential of computer-mediated peer
review (e.g. Ho & Savignon 2007) using commercially available tools available to a
group of users on a closed, local network—the Daedalus Integrated Writing
Environment, for example, has been available since the early 1990s. Research on
classroom-based collaborative writing was focused on the social potential of writing in

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
synchronous (chat) and asynchronous (email and discussion boards) CMC contexts (Kern
1995).

3.1. Notable research on wiki-enhanced L2TL

Since 2008, research on wiki-enhanced L2TL has continued and expanded research
strands begun in CMC and collaborative writing circles by focusing on wiki affordances.
Although most studies cover several areas, they can be categorized according to their
focus on purported affordances for 1) meaning over form, 2) collective activity,
collaboration, and cooperation, and serving as 3) virtual learning environments. As with
blogs, wikis are also claimed to support development of 4) awareness of genuine and
imagined audiences, although again 5) task design parameters and learner variables play
key roles.

3.1.1. Meaning over form

The first strand of research has been on whether wikis are appropriate for focus on
accuracy of form, since in non-educational, informal contexts they function as tools for
collaborative knowledge building and communication where focus on meaning is
paramount. In one of the first studies to ask the question, Kessler (2009) reports on a
project involving a wiki created by 40 L2 English teacher trainees, without any instructor
involvement, that was supplemental to a course on culture. Analysis of the wiki content
and version history showed that the students focused far less on accuracy of form than on
meaning in peer corrections, which Kessler reasons was due to the informal nature of the
task and the wiki environment, and to the inconsequential nature of the errors for
effective communication. Kessler’s results have been cited frequently as evidence that
without intervention, wikis do not promote focus on form.

In a study of the wiki revising activity of three classes of 54 L2 German learners,

Arnold, Ducate, & Kost (2009) found that the learners made more meaning-focused
changes than accuracy-focused changes overall, while making formal revisions to their
own work and leaving others’ work untouched. While the learners corrected about three-
quarters of their own errors autonomously and revised their wikis much more frequently
than studies of paper-based revising had found, the two classes that received more teacher
guidance produced more successful revisions than the other section. In other words,
students may not offer revisions to peers unless instructed to do so, especially when they
perceive their teacher is the true audience—a finding echoed in research on other social
media (cf. Dippold 2009, §2.1.5; Chen 2015, §2.1.4). While Arnold et al.’s work
complements Kessler’s, it is sometimes cited as evidence that learners can and do focus
on form in wikis, although the pivotal role of teacher guidance is sometimes glossed over.

Finally, in a study reporting on the same intervention as Kessler’s aforementioned

earlier work (2009), Kessler & Bikowski (2010) examined the kinds of meaning-focused
changes their participants made in their wiki. They found that only five of the 40 students

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
made more than three changes, with about half making only one, and that most changes
involved creation, deletion, or elaboration rather than synthesis. The researchers conclude
that while there was some indication of what they call ‘collaborative autonomous
learning’, many students used the wiki only intermittently, making edits that required
little critical thinking, and that most used it only because it was a requirement. Echoing
other findings with wikis (cf. Bradley, Lindstrom, & Rystedt 2010, §3.1.2) and other
social media (e.g. Vurdien 2013, §2.1.4), they suggest that for wikis to support
development of learner autonomy, activities should be flexible and student-directed, even
though participation may be uneven and outcomes unpredictable.

3.1.2. Collective activity, collaboration, and cooperation

Since a major purported affordance of wiki-enhanced L2TL is for collaborative writing

(Storch 2011), a second point of investigation has operationalized and contrasted the
concepts of collective activity, collaboration and cooperation. In one of the first widely
cited studies on the topic, Lund (2008) offered a socio-cultural account of how collective
activity emerges as 30 English learners in Norway planned and created a class wiki. In
his analysis of two dyadic interactions, Lund described how the unfolding activity shifted
from localized, individual ownership to collective, interdependent production reflecting
values of reciprocity, multi-voicedness, and trust. Lund clearly situates his study in socio-
cultural theory and methodology, being careful not to conflate the terms ‘collective’ and
‘collaboration’, and in fact never uses either ‘collaboration’ or ‘cooperation’—a nuance
not always recognized by subsequent researchers citing him as evidence for the purported
collaborative benefits of wikis.

Bradley et al.(2010) note critically that ‘the potential of the wiki concept as a
writing tool is frequently assumed’ (249). They had 25 dyads and triads of university
level English learners in Sweden complete wiki-based writing tasks designed to practice
differing genres and registers. Analysis of the wikis shows varying degrees of
cooperation and collaboration, with 10 groups showing only cooperation or no interaction
at all, and 15 showing collaboration as evidenced by true joint authoring and mutual
feedback on both form and meaning. The authors imply that collaboration can be
encouraged through situated learning task design but that for students to remain
motivated and retain agency, variance in participation levels should be anticipated and
permitted—an important caveat that mirrors similar findings on blogs. Arnold, Ducate, &
Kost (2012) examined their aforementioned 2009 data for examples of true collaboration
as opposed to cooperation, defining the former as unified attention by all participants on
the same work, and the latter as separate work in unified spaces. In their new analysis, the
researchers found evidence for four assumed roles: free rider, social loafer, team player,
and leader. They found these assumed roles may lead to uneven distribution of work and
lack of collaboration, sometimes precipitated by the ‘first responder’ phenomenon where
the work of the author first to contribute to a wiki is least likely to be altered.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
 True collaboration may also depend on willingness to share tasks and shift roles
between tasks. In a study of 90 university EFL learners in China, Lai, Lei, & Liu (2016)
found groups who chose to share both wiki composing and co-revising tasks—rather than
some composing and some revising—were more satisfied overall with their experiences
than those who did the tasks individually. Li & Zhu (2017) examined the interactions of
two groups of three ESL learners through and around two wiki-based collaborative
assignments for evidence of equality and mutuality, finding variance in the groups as
individual motivations, roles, and emotional stances shifted between tasks. Pedagogical
implications are to have groups self-assess their collaborative efforts in terms of these
aspects throughout the process.

3.1.3. Virtual learning environments

Because wikis are easily customizable, they can be used as virtual learning environments
that provide supplemental resources and scaffolding on how and why to use wikis for L2
learning. For example, deHaan et al. (2012) had 13 university level English learners in
Japan use a wiki to prepare, transcribe, discuss, and practice spoken role plays, focusing
on interactional competence and fluency. The researchers report overall improvements in
grammar, pragmatics, vocabulary, and learner confidence. Even though tasks were highly
structured and the wiki did not have an external audience, the project was perhaps
successful because students saw themselves as the wiki’s audience and recognized that
the task parameters aligned with what the wiki could do (cf. Pellet 2012, §3.1.4).

However, projects may fail if the tasks are not perceived as aligned with learner
needs and wiki affordances. For example, while most wiki projects are implemented at
the intermediate level or above, Kennedy & Miceli (2013) sought to use a wiki for their
university level beginning Italian learners at 3 Australian campuses. The wiki served as a
common space for notice boards, discussion, social networking, and resource sharing. A
post-instructional survey showed that only a minority of the 79 students enjoyed the wiki
and felt it was beneficial to their learning. Qualitative responses showed appreciation for
interaction, but frustration at technical problems, lack of training, wiki etiquette, division
of labor, and lack of teacher presence. The researchers implicate the inclusion in any
wiki-based VLE of resources that focus on reflective practice and critical awareness
about collaboration in language learning, especially when beginning level learners are
involved.

Recounting similar projects, Rott & Weber (2013) offer suggestions based on
their experiences using wikis in L2 German and French instruction. They explain that
guided discussion and exploration of an example wiki along with templates can give
students a better understanding of wiki structures, while requiring reading of each others’
contributions can help build awareness of audience. They also maintain that students
benefit from discussion of different genre types found in wikis—descriptive, interpretive,
and summative writing—as well as how to use wiki software, how to exploit in-wiki
communication tools, how to take and share notes, and how, when, and when not to use

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
translation tools. In short, their piece offers guidelines for situated and awareness-focused
instruction—approaches found effective in the development of literacies in other social
media as well (cf. §4.2.3 and §4.2.4).

3.1.4. Wiki-enhanced audience awareness

Like findings regarding the potential of blogs to develop audience awareness (§2.1.4),
findings on audience awareness in wikis come with caveats. An early piece on awareness
in wikis that is cited widely, although not always critically, is Mak & Coniam (2008),
who had Hong Kong high school EFL learners use a wiki to develop a school brochure
for their parents. The researchers found that over the course of the project, focal students
on average produced far more language output in the wiki than the minimum required,
and that the output was longer in terms of t-units. They explain the improvement in terms
of wiki affordances for collaboration and processes of revising, expanding, reorganizing,
and correcting, with the motivation of a potentially real audience of readers. The results
should be taken judiciously, however, since Mak & Coniam presented results only from 4
of 24 students, chosen because their wiki was voted best by teachers; it is unknown how
the project went with the majority of the students.

There may be potential when students understand themselves as their own wiki
audience (cf. deHaan et al. 2012, §3.1.3). For example, Pellet (2012) had 30 advanced
French sociolinguistics undergraduate students create wikis to build, manage, and share
course content knowledge—in French, directed by the students, without focus on
grammatical accuracy (perhaps taking Kessler 2009, §3.1.1 into account). Students
responded very positively to the project, and recognized the wiki’s role as a collaborative,
agency-rich space for critical discussion and knowledge building. It is worth noting that
this purpose—using a wiki as a shared knowledge resource or repository like a
dictionary, glossary, guidebook, or encyclopedia—is also the most common outside of
educational contexts. It should also be noted that as advanced French majors at a small
liberal arts college, Pellet’s students were also self-selected and highly motivated.

Incorporating this authentic purpose may also account also for the successes of
King’s project (2015), where university level Hong Kong English learners collaboratively
contributed Wikipedia entries on various Hong Kong subjects and reflected on how the
experience impacted their identities as English users. Some students reported feeling a
sense of writer responsibility, obligation to a wider Wikipedia community, and
satisfaction when their entries were not deleted, while others demonstrated a sense of
legitimate participation when discussing with other Wikipedians the status of their
contributions. King argues that even just the potential of a genuine public audience
afforded users the development of authorial identities in imagined communities, and
while Wikipedia has since replaced or deleted all of the student entries, the experience for
some may have been transformative. As King only presented selected case studies,
however, it remains unknown whether any students felt intimidated, rather than

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
empowered, by a potential external audience, as has been found is possible with blogs
(cf. Chen 2015, §2.1.4).

3.1.5. Wiki-enhanced task design and learner variables

As research on focus on form and collaboration in blogs has found (§2.1.5), task design
and learner variables also play a major part in realization of wiki learning affordances.
Elola & Oskoz (2010) had eight advanced Spanish learners use wikis and chat to
complete both individual and group assignments, and compared outcomes from different
conditions. Differences emerged in how individuals and groups structured and organized
essays, and at what stages in the writing process they made local edits. While students
recognized the value that collaborative writing afforded in terms of learning structure and
organization, they felt the wiki was less useful for learning grammar than initially
expected—not particularly surprising considering other findings (cf. Kessler 2009,
§3.1.1), but notable in that students’ own expectations were not met, perhaps because in
this case they did not have previous wiki experience.

In a similar study, Lee & Wang (2013) analyzed the wiki project participation of
103 English learners at two different Taiwanese universities over 18 weeks to determine
what factors facilitated and hindered participation, including the nature of the task,
student working style preference and orientation towards peer review, and instructor
attitudes towards technology. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of student work,
surveys, and interviews show findings similar to Arnold et al. (2012) and Li & Zhu
(2017, §3.1.2), where successful groups exhibited even workload distribution, mutual
respect of opinion, and sustained interaction. Hindrances to success included the
opposite—uneven distribution, lack of mutual respect, and unsustained interaction—and
were partially attributed to technological and contextual constraints like time delays.

As would be expected, task type also plays a role in the type and amount of
collaboration. Building on the aforementioned work of Kessler, Arnold, and others
(§3.1.1), Aydin & Yildiz (2014) compared the meaning and form-related changes made
by 34 Turkish university level intermediate English learners in argumentative,
informative, and decision-making wiki-based tasks. More changes of both types were
found in argumentative tasks, while there were fewest form-related changes in
informative tasks, and nearly equal numbers of both in decision-making tasks. Most peer
corrections were found in argumentative tasks, while most self corrections were in the
informative ones. In their interpretation, the researchers conclude that argumentative
tasks were more conducive to collaboration and correction because students felt more
compelled to improve opinions with which they agreed, while collaborative negotiation
was unnecessary in informative tasks because their outcomes were factual and not
contentious. They also observed, although over 90% of the corrections were accurate,
that there were very few changes involving synthesis, the hallmark of true collaboration
(cf. Kessler & Bikowski 2010, §3.1.1). Moreover, they found half of the students didn’t
enjoy the tasks—perhaps like Chen et al.’s (2015, §2.1.4) blogging students they would

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
have preferred closed tasks, or like Chen’s (2015, §2.1.5) students, only information
tasks.

3.1.6. Summary and future directions: Wiki-enhanced L2TL

In sum, research on wiki-enhanced L2TL has shown that wikis do not necessarily
promote focus on formal revision and the development of accuracy, especially without
instructional intervention. As group learning tools, wikis may afford cooperation and
shared authorship, but not necessarily true collaboration, and variability in participation
should be anticipated. Wikis may serve as virtual learning environments, as long as needs
and tasks are truly enhanced by wiki structures and awareness of how and why to use
wikis is addressed through situated and explicit instruction. Wiki-enhanced instruction
may help develop audience awareness, if learners believe their collective expertise is
worth sharing—with each other or with broader audiences. As with blogs, formal wiki
tasks may be more effective if they are authentic and are similar to naturalistic, informal
wiki authoring activities, although some learners may prefer traditional activities that
align with their expectations of formal learning.

Future research on wikis should continue to examine the potential affordances

wikis offer for collaborative authorship and the influence of different task parameters and
learner variables on outcomes. Mixed method research techniques that combine analysis
of wiki changes (e.g., Yim & Warschauer 2017) alongside consideration of learner
motivation and stance promise to better capture the dynamic nature of collaboration (e.g.
Alghasab & Handley 2017; Li & Zhu, 2017). Most L2 learners will have very little, if
any, experience creating wikis, unlike SNS profiles, and will probably have used
Wikipedia much less than they have used SNSs. For that reason, explicit scaffolding and
instruction is warranted with wikis, including awareness building regarding their utility as
learning and collaboration tools. Building awareness might involve exploring with
students the concepts of collective intelligence and crowdsourced wisdom, for example in
social media like Reddit or Digg—two popular tools whose application to L2TL has yet
to be explored fully.

4. Social networking sites

Social networking sites (SNSs) can be defined as social media that foreground personal
profile curation, network traversing, and network articulation (boyd & Ellison 2007;
Ellison & boyd 2013)—in contrast to a primary emphasis on content creation, which
typifies blogs, wikis, and other sorts of social media. However, as the technologies of
social networking, the Web, broadband, and mobile and smartphones continue to evolve,
functional distributions among different platforms and tools have blurred. While SNSs
are typified by user status updates presented in reverse chronological order, which
function somewhat like short blog posts with threaded discussions, they integrate
functions like photo hosting, multimedia sharing, chatting or messaging, and a variety of

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
third-party applications. Some SNSs are now so integrated with mobile and smartphone
computing technologies like cameras (e.g. Instagram or SnapChat) and and location
based services (e.g. Foursquare) that they have limited use without them.

Sometimes termed a ‘microblog’, Twitter was intentionally designed as a means

for quick dissemination of news headlines or gossip by allowing users to subscribe to the
feeds of, or ‘follow’, people they did not know personally and to track and browse
information through the use of ‘hashtags’. Until very recently, tweets were limited to 140
characters, which made content easily sharable but perhaps superficial—unlike blogs and
wikis, which afforded lengthier authorship and collaboration. Now, however, by allowing
longer tweets and the embedding of images and videos, Twitter has become more like
Facebook, while Facebook has recently incorporated the concepts of followers and
hashtags, becoming more like Twitter.

Early Internet-based SNSs evolved out of comprehensive Internet services like

Compuserve and America OnLine. Because they were centered on profile creation and
networking with other users, the first SNSs in the 1990s were initially designed as dating,
class reunion (Classmates.com), and business networking services (LinkedIn).
Leveraging Web 2.0 capabilities, the first generation of SNSs like Sixdegrees.com,
Friendster, MySpace, and eventually Facebook used a ‘degree of separation’ concept
(Shah 2016) that allowed users to build networks through other users. This allowed
networks to emerge from and through existing social connections (e.g. friendships),
rather than through affiliations, interests, or purposes supposed and imposed by website
developers. As of March 2018, Facebook is the SNS par excellence, with 1.45 billion
using the service daily (Facebook, 2018). Of note to L2 educators, the popularity of
different SNSs varies according to country— as of this writing for example, Mixi is quite
popular in Japan, vKontakte in Russia, and QZone in China.

As SNS use has become global and mainstream, academia has taken interest.
Education scholars (e.g. Selwyn 2008) have argued that SNSs can facilitate the
development of collaborative and participatory learning communities, as well as
opportunities for informal and unstructured learning. In a review of over 400 studies on
Facebook, Wilson et al. (2012) identified five major areas of research focus: descriptive
analysis of users, motivations for using Facebook, identity presentation, the role of
Facebook in social interactions, and privacy and information disclosure. In line with
education, communications, and social science research, L2TL researchers and
practitioners have explored informal L2 use and learning using vernacular SNSs like
Facebook (§4.1), formal pedagogical applications of vernacular SNSs like Facebook and
Twitter (§4.2), and the informal but intentional use of educational SNSs or SNECSs
(social network enhanced commercial CALL sites and services) like Livemocha and
Busuu (§4.3).

4.1 Informal L2 use and learning in SNSs

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Studies of informal SNS-enhanced L2 use and learning outside of, or peripheral to formal
instructional contexts have found evidence these SNSs are used for 1) the learning,
practicing, and maintenance of home, heritage, and new languages and 2) strategic self-
directed learning. Research has also shown considerable 3) theoretical and
methodological innovation, informed by trends in related fields like Internet
sociolinguistics, communication and new media studies.

4.1.1. Strategic maintenance and learning of heritage languages

Researchers have argued that multilingual users and L2 learners find in SNSs tools
effective and strategic means for learning and using languages, practicing heritage
identities, and maintaining home connections. In one of the first studies along these lines,
Lee (2006) presented two case studies of the electronic literacy practices of two
adolescent female heritage speakers of Korean in the US who used the Korean SNS
Cyworld to practice their language informally through interaction with friends. Research
on heritage learners’ use of SNSs has also included bilingual English-Spanish speakers in
Puerto Rico (Carroll 2008), and Welsh users in the UK (e.g., Cunliffe, Morris, & Prys
2013; Jones 2015). In general, findings are that users strategically consider addressee and
purpose in choice of language when code mixing or shifting, and they find community in
SNSs among geographically dispersed populations.

The common implication that L2 learners and users find empowerment and voice
in informal but strategic SNS use is echoed in other studies that focus more intently on
identity and literacy development. For example, in case studies of three college L2
writers, DePew & Miller-Cochran (2010) show how each participant used different SNSs
for different purposes, demonstrating varying degrees of symbolic and social networking
literacies, including audience awareness. Using similar methods, DePew (2011) offers
three more case studies of the extramural Facebook practices of lower proficiency L2
writers, who demonstrated facility with different registers and audiences and mixing
languages to present heritage identities. DePew argues that even though L2 writers may
be construed as deficient in English proficiency, their highly sophisticated and strategic
use of social media is seldom recognized by their schools as a legitimate sort of literacy.
Pedagogical implications are to acknowledge these new literacies and to leverage them
by somehow integrating SNSs into formal instruction (cf. §4.2.4).

4.1.2. Self-directed learning of foreign languages

Building on the notion that vernacular SNSs are used strategically, another strand focuses
on the self-directed, or deliberate and intentional, foreign language learning that they
mediate. For example, Pasfield-Neofitou (2011) analyzed the online SNS, blog, and
email-mediated writings of 12 Australian learners of Japanese and their contacts over
four years. She examined how language and topic choice indexed identity presentation,
conceptions of nationality, and the perceived ownership of online spaces. Participants
used their Japanese non-native user/learner and English speaker identities strategically

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
according to interactional purpose, and found some SNSs more accommodating to their
learner identities than others. Back (2013) analyzed the daily Facebook posts of 3
learners of Portuguese studying abroad in Brazil and found considerable differences in
number, length, and change in length of posts in Portuguese over time. Interpretation
implicates the development of audience and register awareness afforded by SNS use,
albeit via different pathways, at differing rates, and to different degrees for individual
learners. Jin (2018) showed how two L2 Chinese learners studying abroad in Shanghai
utilized the ecological affordances of WeChat in different beneficial ways. For example,
the lower proficiency learner leveraged the tool’s multimodal resources like stickers and
memes to scaffold his L2 use, while the higher proficiency learner accessed vernacular
registers by virtue of being part of a network of other learners, L1 speakers, and
instructors. A common implication of research in this strand is to advocate the use of
vernacular SNSs extramurally and to teach explicitly the skills needed for their strategic
uses as L2 learners (cf. Prichard 2013, §4.2.3). As surveys (e.g. Lai, Hu, & Lyu 2018)
have found that some learners find social media for informal, extramural learning forced
and inauthentic, however, participation should be encouraged in interest-focused affinity
spaces where L2 use is not the goal but the means of interaction.

4.1.3. Theoretical adaptation and methodological innovation

Descriptive research of informal, multilingual SNS use usually employs qualitative,

ethnographic methods in the tradition of Lam’s online language socialization research
(e.g. 2000; 2004). Recent work also borrows concepts from research in Internet
sociolinguistics that recognizes the multilingual and superdiverse nature of online
language use (e.g. Vertovec 2007; Blommaert 2010; Androutsopoulos 2015). For
example, Schreiber (2015) examined the literacy practices of a Serbian adolescent in
Facebook, and argues they should be considered ‘translanguaging’, wherein the user
considers the various repertoires and resources as an integrated system, and the SNS
serves as an intertextual space for self-presentation and identity performance (cf. §4.1.1).
Schreiber showed how her participant was able to develop and present both local and
transnational, global English-mediated identities through a variety of translingual re-
entextualization and sharing practices that affiliated him with global hip-hop
communities.

Other studies have employ mixed and quantitative techniques as well. For
example, Chen (2013; see also Chen 2012) examined the Facebook use over two years of
two L1 Chinese graduate student multilingual writers in the US, finding one student
preferred to post personal updates and observations while the other shifted from personal
updates to sharing and other-involved writing as she observed others doing the same.
Working with the second participant’s data further, Reinhardt & Chen (2013) used
frequency analysis to study the participant’s development and made the argument that her
Facebook activity indexed perceived socialization into an imagined community
(Anderson 1991, in Reinhardt & Chen 2013). Also employing mixed methods, Solmaz
(2015) used an innovative visualized social network analysis technique to present

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
evidence that students used diverse multilingual and multimodal resources in online
identity performance and SNS literacy practices. Visualization showed that an
individual’s networks mapped into different patterns according to language, gender, and
community affiliation. In a book-length treatment, Vandergriff (2016) provides a useful
model for applying computer-mediated discourse analytic techniques to a variety of SNS
contexts of L2 use and learning in both vernacular SNSs and SNECSs (§4.3). In the
examples, she shows how users employ agency through strategic self-presentation,
deployment of multilingual resources, negotiation for supportive space, engagement in
play, and management of learning processes.

Innovative approaches have led to important classroom implications. For

example, Warner & Chen (2017) adapt Goffmanesque participation analytic techniques
to three translingual Facebook conversations, showing that features like virtual
adjacency, non-verbal backchanneling, focused addressivity, and layered simultaneity
make them highly unique in comparison to non-digital conversations. As such, the
authors argue, they might serve better to develop symbolic competence and awareness of
symbolic power than the artificial examples found in classroom texts. In their analysis of
the translingual practices of their L1 Arabic and L1 Spanish students in an English
telecollaboration project, Kulavuz-Onal & Vásquez (2018) showed that all three
languages became interactional resources for audience design, intercultural awareness,
and establishing solidarity, arguing that ‘English only’ classroom policies do reflect the
global reality of social media literacy practices.

4.1.4. Summary and future directions: Informal SNS L2 use and learning

Research on informal use of SNSs for L2 use and learning differs from research on
pedagogical applications of blogs and wikis because there are far fewer, if any, notable
studies on the informal use of those tools for L2 use and learning. SNSs are unique in this
regard because they are vernacular and everyday, but they are truly global and used in
multilingual and transcultural ways. Their use centers on networking with new and old
friends, family, and home or heritage culture communities. Unfortunately the
considerable audience and register awareness, interactional, and identity performance
skills involved in SNS use are usually neither recognized nor legitimized in traditional
writing or language instruction.

Research in the area holds great potential to inform SNS-enhanced L2 pedagogy

and to benefit from interdisciplinary cross-pollination. Internet sociolinguistics and
computer-mediated discourse analysis are growing fields (e.g. Page et al. 2014; Jones,
Chik, & Hafner 2015), and offer examples of analyses of computer-mediated and social
media discourse with frameworks that can be adapted to L2 situations as well. The field
will also benefit from the addition of quantitative techniques that complement the many
case studies and ethnographic perspectives, allowing for more generalizable and scalable
results. Because SNS use has become so ubiquitous and is digitized, applying mixed

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
methods should not be as difficult as it perhaps once was, although new issues of gaining
permission, maintaining privacy, and archiving digital data present additional challenges.

4.2. SNS-enhanced L2 pedagogy

Complementing research on informal L2 use and learning with vernacular SNSs, and
sometimes incorporating its implications, a second broad research area on SNS reports on
formal, classroom-based pedagogical applications of vernacular SNSs like Facebook and
Twitter, as well as on autonomous learning through extracurricular use of SNSs
associated with formal interventions. Research strands in the area focus on 1) the
motivational benefits of SNSs, and their affordances for 2) observation of and
participation in genuine L2 socio-pragmatic usage, 3) situated and simulated practice, 4)
literacies development, and 5) autonomous learning.

4.2.1. Motivational benefits of SNSs

Early work on vernacular SNS use included idea pieces focused on its motivational
potential. For example, McCarty (2009) described his attempt to explore learner
motivations and reactions by joining his EFL students’ social network Mixi, where he
found mixed reactions from students at his presence. His finding pointed to an early point
of debate—whether teachers should be SNS friends with students or force students to
friend each other (see also McBride 2009)—that has now largely been solved since
Facebook introduced its groups feature. McCarty’s study also illustrated another
increasingly relevant issue—whether vernacular, everyday technologies like SNSs can be
fully appropriated for formal educational purposes and retain their motivational qualities.
In an empirical answer to the question, Kelley (2010) found that 4 experimental classes
of Chinese university EFL learners who participated in MySpace discussions measured
significantly higher in some measures of integrative/ideal L2 self motivation post-
treatment than 4 control classes who did comparable activities face-to-face. While there
might have been a novelty effect and the teacher was not controlled for, a plausible
interpretation was that the SNS (and the teacher) functioned as a ‘window’ to the outside
world, which for Chinese students at the time, was a significant motivator. It would be
interesting to test SNS vs. non-SNS conditions experimentally now, several years later,
when SNS use has truly become ubiquitous and everyday, even in once-isolated China.
While the reason ‘because students are motivated by technology’ might once have been
sufficient to justify a technology-enhanced activity over a traditional one, learners may
now find classroom technology normalized (Bax 2011).

Some recent studies have compared social media-enhanced activities to controlled

versions of the same activities face-to-face. For example, Dizon (2016) found that the
writing fluency of a Facebook experimental group improved in comparison to a face-to-
face control group, but lexical richness and grammatical accuracy did not. Özdemir
(2017; cf. Jin, 2015) found improvement in measures of intercultural competence in
Facebook discussions compared to control groups. While she did not compare them to

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
face-to-face equivalents, Liu (2017) found more instances of negotiation and resolution in
Facebook chats among high-level proficiency learners than low-level, who relied more on
requests for help. Although these results are interesting, future research should focus on
which particular social media dynamics lead to L2 learning affordances by isolating task
and contextual variables. For example, the anytime accessibility, informality, reduced
social cues, or anonymity of social media posting may be more associated with some
learning affordances than others.

4.2.2. Genuine L2 socio-pragmatic usage

One of the first to propose potential formal applications of SNSs, McBride (2009)
describes them as spaces for learner self-authorship, interaction, and sociopragmatic
development. Echoing Prensky’s (2001) digital natives argument, she argues that SNS
users practice ‘writing/re-mixing of the self’ through impression management, identity
work, and identity play, which may all contribute to L2 development. Heralding future
studies, she suggests a variety of projects included alternative identity profiles, group
profiles, global simulations, media-centered projects, and theme-centered projects.

One strand of research to echo McBride’s (2009) suggestions was forged by

Blattner and colleagues, who recognized the potential of SNSs to serve as windows onto
genuine L2 socio-pragmatic usage. For example, Blattner & Fiori (2009) had university-
level French and Spanish learners in the US observe expert speakers informally through
Facebook’s group function. The instruction, based in Lave & Wenger’s (1991) notion of
situated learning, had learners observe and gather information on how speech acts were
used and how usage differed among varieties. In a later study, Blattner & Fiori (2011)
had advanced Spanish learners participate in guided discourse analysis tasks designed to
raise socio-pragmatic awareness of various speech acts and discourse functions in
Facebook groups whose subjects corresponded to course topics. Students in both studies
responded positively. Finally, Blattner & Lomicka (2012) reported on the use of
Facebook groups as a space for telecollaborative exchange between French learners in
the US and English learners in France. Comparison of pre- and post-instruction attitudes
towards formal SNS-mediated learning showed a shift towards awareness of the L2
learning potential of the medium. Although they were not required to, many students
friended each other and thus remained connected after the course finished.

Twitter has also been explored as a means for exposing learners to genuine usage
outside of traditional class times and spaces. For example, Antenos-Conforti (2009) had
her intermediate L2 Italian learners follow each other on Twitter, inviting a few native
speakers to participate as well. While most learners reported satisfaction being able to
interact in the L2 authentically outside of class, half reported being overwhelmed with the
frequency of the contributions from the native speakers, and discomfort at not knowing
them in real life. Lomicka & Lord (2011) had 13 L2 French learners use Twitter to
interact with each other and with native French speakers. Analysis found affective (e.g.
humor and self-disclosure) and interactive features in the tweets, but fewer cohesive

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
features in the form of vocatives and phatic language, perhaps due to the implied
addressivity of a closed community. The invited native speakers did not tweet nearly as
much as the learners, which might indicate they did not feel a part of the group. For
beginning learners especially, there might be less intimidation if Twitter use in the L2
mirrors the authentic practice of following celebrities, and using the tweets as objects of
analysis (e.g. Blattner, Dalola, & Lomicka 2015), rather than as a tool for closed group
interaction.

Findings on SNS are similar to those of other studies of social media-enhanced

cultural exchange, where blogs served as windows onto genuine uses and means of
interaction with cultural informants and experts. While not always reported, challenges
related to appropriate task design and learner variables—the double-edged sword of peer
and authentic audiences empowering some learners but intimidating others—are
considerable (cf. Lee 2009, §2.1.1; Chen 2015, §2.1.4). Studies also sometimes fail to
discuss if and how connections initiated in SNS-enhanced intercultural exchange might
lead to sustainable autonomous learning practices. Future work might examine this
potential, informed by research on how learners use SNS strategically for informal
learning outside of the classroom (cf. §4.1, §4.3).

4.2.3. Situated and simulated practice

Also implementing some of McBride’s (2009) suggestions is a strand of research

building on the potential of SNSs for situated learning (Lave & Wenger 1991), since they
have become ubiquitous and familiar and might therefore act as a point of departure for
exploration of new practices in the L2. For example, Mills (2011) developed Facebook-
enhanced global simulation instruction for university-level advanced French learners.
Over the course of a semester, students developed simulated identities by completing
joint narrative authoring tasks, interacting as their characters in wall posts and status
updates, and sharing various online resources, which contributed to a sense of immersion.
In the ensuant SNS-mediated interactions and simulated self-presentations, Mills found
evidence of the joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and shared repertoire characteristic
of situated learning. In a similar project, Reinhardt & Ryu (2013) created and
implemented a series of role play and bridging activities for intermediate L2 Korean
learners, the purpose of which was to develop awareness of Korean Internet language and
sociogrammar by voicing perspectives they could not with their actual identities.
Learners analyzed each others’ production and discussed the appropriateness of the
language used. In another example, Yen, Hou, & Chang (2015) developed a series of
team-based activities for 42 EFL learners in Taiwan enhanced by Skype and Facebook.
Teams used Facebook groups as a medium for brainstorming and discussing sales
strategies they would then employ in the Skype-based business negotiation role plays.
These pieces offer models for instruction by means of which learners can identify with
and as L2 users through familiar SNS lenses. In other words, to continue the metaphor of
SNSs as windows onto socio-pragmatically genuine discourses and gateways into

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
communities, SNSs can also as playgrounds or safe spaces for practice, perhaps before
they are used for interaction with expert users and genuine communities.

4.2.4. Literacies development

As social media becomes increasingly used as a primary source of news and information,
there is also justification for focus on media literacy in L2TL (e.g. Reinhardt & Thorne
2011; cf. also §3.1.3). These might be integrated with ‘SNS literacies’, which Solmaz
(2015) argued, based on his descriptive analysis of the informal SNS practices of
multilingual university students (§4.1.3), include simulation, performance, appropriation,
judgement, and networking literacies. Research shows these activities should be
experiential and focused on developing criticality. For example, Prichard (2013)
developed and implemented a set of SNS-enhanced activities corresponding to the
TESOL technology standards for 41 Japanese EFL learners. Activities had students
experience Facebook in English by creating profiles, friending others, joining groups, and
making posts and comments. Similar to Reinhardt & Ryu (2013) but using real rather
than role played identities, critical activities had students determine the appropriacy and
relevance of different posts, and critically evaluate SNSs as aids to L2 learning. Students
responded positively to the intervention, although for the most part they used the site
more for informal socializing than for explicit study purposes, a finding that aligns with
studies of other social media use (Kessler 2009; §3.1.1)

Because SNSs are associated with informal, everyday uses, formal SNS activities
may not always be well-received, as Reinhardt & Zander (2011) found. They had their
students play and evaluate Facebook-based social games together and critically evaluate
the use of SNSs for educational purposes. Because of the extrinsic pressures of an
impending standardized test, however, some learners resisted the SNS-enhanced
activities and did not wish to interact with classmates on SNS outside of class, preferring
more rote and traditional test preparation activities. Wang & Kim (2014) found that their
advanced Chinese learners for the most part enjoyed an assignment requiring open-ended
posts and responses to the group Facebook page, valuing it for extramural practice,
freedom of topic choice, and socializing with other class members, but some expressed
concern that it distracted them from other more academic-focused assignments. This
aligns with findings (cf. §2.1.5 and §3.1.5) that learners themselves may have
unexamined preferences for traditional, transmission-oriented, and teacher-driven
language instruction. Williams, Abraham, & Bostelmann (2014) found half of the 800
American university students they surveyed did not think social media should be
integrated into L2 curricula—future research might explore reasons for this and what
implications there are for formal uses.

4.2.5. Autonomous learning

Findings on learner pushback on formal, explicit SNS-enhanced instruction have led to

exploration of whether there is the possibility of encouraging learners to teach

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
themselves. Studies of semi-formal (sometimes confusingly called non-formal) or
extramural uses of SNSs support the hypothesis that giving learners a sense of control is
key to developing autonomy, as these connections often result in more naturalistic
interactions and informal learning opportunities. For example, Liaw & English (2013)
compared the exchanges made between English learners in France and Taiwan in a
formal, institution-supported SNS and a Facebook group that they spontaneously created
on their own. A systemic-functional linguistic analysis found less interpersonal and
textual language in the official group than in the unofficial group. The researchers
suggest that the unsanctioned quality of the informal group afforded the learning of
interpersonal language not possible in the formal group, leading to more genuine and
situated learning of culture.

Another way to encourage autonomy might be to carefully scaffold an SNS

resource so that learners gradually take ownership. For example, Yang, Crook, &
O’Malley (2014) examined the implementation of a Ning-based SNS created for 7
adolescent learners in an extracurricular Mandarin learning program for virtual teaching,
social, and cognitive presence. Over time the teacher gradually relinquished activity
direction to the students, who then autonomously assumed teaching presence. Analysis of
user behavior and change in content over time showed that the SNS activity exhibited
social and cognitive presence as well. The results contrast with Kennedy & Miceli’s
findings (2013, §3.1.3), where a learner-directed wiki-enhanced learning resource was
not so successful—it may be that without scaffolding, or perhaps for larger numbers of
students taking a course as a requirement rather than voluntarily, SNS resources will not
be utilized as readily for autonomous learning.

A third approach might be to offer a variety of platforms and allow learners to

choose and use them differently. Lamy (2013) examined about 5400 SNS-enhanced posts
by L2 Chinese learners who, over a year, participated in two institutional but informal
chat rooms (4000 posts) as well as in public and private Facebook groups they created for
themselves (1400 posts), posting freely in both languages. She found that most learner
posts, in both the institutional and Facebook groups, exhibited re-use and link display,
but little openness or network effects—the former meaning sharing resources that are
openly re-useable, and the latter meaning enhancing shared resources so that they grow in
virality or popularity—all four qualities can lead to affordances. She attributes
differences in post type to the differing parameters and constraints of participation in the
institutional, informal, and learner-directed groups. It may also have been that particular
site features facilitate or inhibit open or network activities, or that even in the informal
groups, the learners saw the activities as formal in nature. Implications from research on
informal uses (§4.1) might be applied, and more long term research on the use of semi-
formal SNS groups is warranted—perhaps using ethnography to get at users’ emic
perspectives on what they believe they are doing in the different SNSs, and for what
purposes they use one kind over another.

4.2.6. Summary and future directions: SNS-enhanced L2 pedagogy

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
In sum, research has shown that vernacular SNSs can be used for observation of, and
participation in, socio-pragmatically genuine discourse practices in the L2 of study. The
SNS practice of profile curation can be leveraged as an affordance for L2 identity
development, interaction, and language awareness through simulation and role play
activities, while network traversing (i.e. sharing and posting) can be leveraged to develop
learner community. Learner agency and autonomy can be facilitated through the
provision or unofficial support of SNS resources that are supplemental to formal
instruction. Findings also suggest, however, that resistance may be encountered
depending on task parameters and learner variables—for example if SNS use is required,
if activities are imposed top-down, and if learners are required to use their real identities
and to friend each other unwillingly.

Future research and instructional development should build on the findings from analysis
of naturalistic, informal SNS L2 use and learning (e.g. §4.1.4), connecting descriptive
research with pedagogical practice. As SNS use becomes everyday practice and assumes
a central role in our cultural, political, and educational lives, development of social media
literacies—by using SNSs critically as windows, gateways, and playgrounds—might be a
direct goal of L2 curricula. Through critical examination of how languages and other
semiotic means are used in SNSs for presenting identities, building and maintaining
relationships, and otherwise creating social meaning, learners might see their own and
others’ practices more critically, and participate more reflectively in both L1 and L2.
Autonomous use is key to successful lifelong L2 learning—there is no doubt that once L2
learners leave classrooms, there is a good chance they will encounter the L2 in social
media and other digitally enhanced contexts as often, if not more often, than in face-to-
face situations.

4.3. SNECSs: Social network-enhanced commercial CALL sites and services

A third area of research on SNSs for L2 learning is on the self-directed use of SNECSs,
sometimes called social networking sites for language learning (SNSLL). Zourou (2012)
offers a taxonomy for three different types of these ‘Web 2.0 language learning
communities’, comprised of ‘structured language learning communities’, centered on
tutorial CALL lessons, ‘marketplaces’, focused on tutor or peer pairing and hosting, and
‘language exchange sites’, focused on general interaction and socialization. As of this
writing, however, these sites have continued to evolve into online amalgams of all three
types enhanced by a variety of social networking and intelligent CALL features. In
March 2016 the most widely researched SNECS, Livemocha, was acquired and shut
down by Rosetta Stone, which may or may not revive it in some form. Busuu, Babbel,
and Palabea (also now defunct) began as primarily online tutorial CALL and have
incorporated various social network-enhanced market and exchange features from their
beginnings. DuoLingo started as a peer-tutoring translation site, and has increasingly
incorporated tutorial CALL elements and social networking features.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
 In view of this continuing evolution, the term SNSLL has become inadequate—I
propose instead the term ‘social network-enhanced commercial CALL sites and services’
(SNECSs). Typical SNECS use involves creating profiles, articulating and cultivating
networks (often suggested by the site), engaging in tutorial CALL lessons (sometimes
authored by other users) that focus on writing, reading, grammar, and listening, and
participating in synchronous chat and asynchronous discussion boards. In exchange for
completing various tasks—often providing feedback to other users—SNECSs offer
rewards in the form of recognized status and access to premium content and tutors.
Alternatively or in addition, premium access can be purchased. These features and their
impact on user experience, or usability, has been one of two major research strands in the
area.

4.3.1. Overall SNECS usability

Research focused on SNECS usability has generally found that while different features
appeal to different learners, poor design often distracts from learning potential. For
example, Harrison & Thomas (2009) followed six L2 learners who used Livemocha.
Using boyd & Ellison’s (2007) conceptualization of SNS identity as an analytic
framework, they argued the site afforded self-presentation, network management, and
community participation, but that different site features appealed to some learners but not
to others. Clark & Gruba (2010) reported on their own experiences using Livemocha to
learn Korean over four weeks, identifying several site affordances that motivated them
and aligned with L2 pedagogical principles—the opportunity to communicate with native
speakers, to use chat instead of voice or video, to leave comments for others, and to have
tasks broken into manageable chunks. However, certain design elements led to
frustration, including outdated methods and boring drills, decontextualized content,
limited opportunities for interaction, excessive requirements to help others, and no
acknowledgement in the site design of the relative difficulty between English and
languages like Korean as opposed to Spanish.

The work of Liu and colleagues (2010; 2013; 2015) also employs usability testing
along with comparison as methods for evaluating SNECSs and their potential integration
into formal instruction, with similar critical findings. Comparing Palabea, Livemocha,
and Babbel, Stevenson and Liu (2010) evaluated technical and pedagogical usability by
examining how five learners completed exploratory, open-ended, and close-ended tasks
in the sites. In brief, users wanted a combination of features no one single SNECS
offered—access to native speakers and tutorial CALL resources, an atmosphere of both
serious and fun learning, customizability, and intuitive interface design. In a second
study, Liu at al. (2013) explored the possibility of integrating SNECSs into formal
instruction. They had 21 adult ESL students complete a series of focused tasks over six
weeks in Livemocha, Busuu, and English Café, and found in general that the first was
preferred for speaking and vocabulary, the second for reading and writing, and the third
for grammar. There were considerable differences in how comfortable participants were
using the sites, which communication modes they preferred, how proficiency level

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
influenced outcomes, how feedback was received, and how design features led to
preferential differences because of perceived affordances. A third study (Liu et al. 2015)
examined four more SNECSs—LingQ, Lang-8, italki, and Polyglotclub—and focused on
the design of supplemental learning tasks they designed, including journal keeping, video
watching, text reconstruction, and photo sharing tasks. Behavioral data analysis and a
user survey of 6 adult ESL learners revealed that advertisements, complicated and poorly
designed interfaces, and inaccurate translations sometimes interfered with the tasks. In
short, teachers may not be able to ameliorate the problems of poor SNECS design with
well-designed supplemental tasks.

Coming to similar conclusions, Brick and colleagues (2011; 2012; 2013) also
examined SNECSs as potential formal teaching resources, from the perspectives of both
learners and instructors. Brick’s analysis (2011) of the Livemocha experiences of 7
learners of a variety of languages showed frustration at the quality of peer feedback as
well as a perceived tendency towards ‘cyber-flirting’. Users were quite unhappy with the
quality of the curricula, which focused on rote memorization and word lists. In a
complementary study (2012), Brick analyzed the experiences of 15 instructors and 14
students with Busuu. While most reported their overall experiences were positive, and
students were enthusiastic about the site’s reward systems, there was some instructor
skepticism about inauthenticity of material and cultural representations. Finally, Orsini-
Jones, Brick, & Pibworth (2013) examined how 8 L2 teacher trainees evaluated
Livemocha and Busuu with regards to learner agency and found a pattern of motivation,
frustration, and demotivation similar to what Clark & Gruba (2010) found. While
participants appreciated some site features, they were demotivated by mismatches
between materials and designated level and between the potential of the sites to support
authentic interaction and the behaviorist, decontextualized nature of the materials
themselves. They were also frustrated at the lack of pedagogical expertise by the other
users, even if they were recognized by the site to have it.

Most recently, large scale quantitative usage analysis offers statistically

significant evidence that lack of real teaching expertise among users is perhaps the
biggest issue with SNECSs. Lin, Warschauer, & Blake (2016) surveyed over 4000 users
of Livemocha, with additional case study analysis of the production of 20 users, focused
on attitudes and site usage. Although survey participants in general felt the site built self-
confidence and was motivating, the case studies showed that most users quit after a few
months. Analysis of user work showed that while syntactic complexity increased the
longer the site was used, accuracy did not. The researchers argue the findings implicate
the need for dedicated, trained instructors, without whom learners are not motivated to
persist in their efforts and to attend to persistent errors in accuracy.

4.3.2. Focus on specific SNECS features and affordances

A second strand of research on SNECSs focuses on specific site features and their
affordances, often taking theoretically rigorous discourse analytic approaches to do so.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
This approach, to focus on features and dynamics that are universal across SNECSs, is
perhaps in reaction to the fact that as commercial products being constantly updated,
SNECSs are evolving and sometimes disappearing targets. Most studies, like those
employing usability analytic methods, find that site designs leave users frustrated, and
that while negative affordances counteract positive learning outcomes, sometimes
positive affordances emerge in spite of site design, as users adapt.

For example, Harrison (2013) examined the central role that profiles play in
impression management and identification of the pedagogical expertise of language
partners in SNECSs. Ethnomethodological analysis of the experiences of 7 Livemocha
users found they were discouraged by the inability to control profile features and privacy
settings, which, combined with the inability to discern authenticity in others’ profiles, led
to mistrust and uncertainty about the potential affordances of peer interaction and
tutoring. In an similar focused study, Zourou & Loiseau (2013) conducted a quantitative
analysis of the Livemocha’s culture section’s threads over two years, showing a boom at
launch of number of threads (about 1300 per day), a gradual decline of threads over time,
and a low rate of persistence—only 10% remained active after a month. Closer analysis
found that most threads were photos, comments were very sparse, language used was
simple, and responses on the most popular threads were not interactive. The researchers
conclude that the mechanism for sorting threads favored new thread authoring rather than
response or re-use and that the functional complexity of network traversing—i.e. finding
and interacting with one’s friend’s culture threads—inhibited the potential of the culture
section to afford social interaction and learning. Most recently, Zourou, Potalia, and
Zourou (2017) explored SNECS affordances for the development of autonomy in a study
of over 1500 French and English learners using Busuu. Comparison of the users’ solo
engagement with tutorial CALL exercises to social activity with peer correction activities
showed a majority preference for the latter, which the authors argue represents a social
autonomy stance. Whether or not that activity leads to long term learning gains, however,
is unknown—although if Lin et al.’s (2016, §4.3.1) findings hold, it probably does not.

Gonzales (2013) used conversation analysis to examine how an L2 Spanish

learner negotiated rapport and solidarity in Livemocha chat with native-speaking partners
in spite of, not thanks to, site affordances, through the use of humor, small talk,
textualized paralanguage, and shared cultural reference. Even though the site provided
chat users with translators, extra emoticons and L2 characters, and suggested topics, the
learner instead autonomously leveraged his CMC discourse competence, thereby
developing sociopragmatic competence. In a similar study using discourse analysis,
Vandergriff (2015) examined 120 discussion board transcripts in the non-commercial,
non-profit SNECS Deutsch für Dich (DfD) for evidence of the expression and exercise of
learner agency, including formulating goals, engaging in strategic learning behaviors like
planning and self-regulating, choosing which language to use, and engaging in humor.
She found considerable evidence of the expression of agency, sometimes, like Gonzales
(2013) in spite of site design, but mostly in concord with the pedagogical objectives built
into the design. It is notable that DfD is developed by the venerable non-profit Goethe

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Institute, which hires professional tutors and trained instructors to operate and design the
site.

4.3.3. Summary and future directions: SNECSs

In sum, most studies that have examined SNECSs in terms of overall usability by learners
and instructors have found that poor site design not grounded in best L2TL practices or
accepted SLA theory ultimately leads to frustration and abandonment. Studies of
particular site features and affordances emergent from use have also shown less than
encouraging results, although recent studies (e.g. Vandergriff 2015; Zourou et al. 2017),
aligning with trends in other social media research (cf. §2.1.3, §4.1.2, §4.2.5), show some
affordances for the development of learner autonomy.

While the evidence against Livemocha might lead one to conclude its demise was
perhaps for the better, other SNECSs continue to develop, and one hopes their developers
might learn from the successes of the non-commercial DfDs among them. Unfortunately,
as long as there is a steady stream of new customers who find the status, ranking, and
gamified rewards systems motivating, but who are unaware that poorly designed,
decontextualized memorization drills may not lead to long term learning gains,
commercial SNECS developers have no reason to pay attention to L2TL research. To
force their and their customers’ attention, more long term studies like Lin et al.’s (2016)
that target and isolate different features, mechanics, and dynamics are necessary. The
question of whether sustained, long term use of commercial SNECSs can lead to
sustained linguistic development, even in the absence of teaching expertise, can be
answered with studies that compare SNECSs with other SNECSs as well as with non-
SNECS conditions. In particular, qualitative studies of successful users and formal
programs that integrate SNECSs are needed that offer insights into the ecologies of
SNECSs use.

Increasing research focus on informal, extramural learning practices may also

contribute to research on SNECSs and social media in L2TL more broadly (e.g. Sockett
2014; Sylven & Sundqvist 2016). While educational social media use is only one kind of
practice among a variety of informal, self-directed L2 learning practices, SNECSs are
designed for intentional L2 learning, unlike digital games or other vernacular media. Chik
& Ho (2017) found that beginning L2 learners gravitated towards structured self-directed
L2 learning resources rather than opportunities for interaction with other speakers, and
that time limitations pushed would-be learners to ready-made rather than do-it-yourself
resources. While some SNECSs become more comprehensive as others become more
targeted and customizable, their place in an L2 learner’s increasingly multifarious
repertoire of extramural resources is a topic for continued scholarly attention.

5. Conclusion

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
In conclusion, there has been considerable research on social media in L2TL—blogs,
wikis, and both vernacular and educational SNSs—that has implications for language
teaching defined broadly. Research has argued and provided evidence that social media
used informally can afford the development of intercultural, sociopragmatic, and
audience awareness, language learner and user identities, and particular literacies. If used
with agency and awareness, these tools may afford development of learner autonomy.
Moreover, certain media have particular potentials—for example, blogs for reflective
learning, wikis for collaborative learning, and SNSs for situated learning—that can be
leveraged with carefully designed instruction that considers learner backgrounds and
histories with social media outside of the classroom.

Research on social media in L2TL to date has utilized socially informed L2TL
theories, especially social-constructivist, multiliteracies, and L2 identity development
theories, as well as a variety of research methodologies and techniques, including case
studies, instructional and action research, discourse analysis, ethnography, and
quantitative data analysis. As practices mature, they have the potential to inform theory
building and methodological innovation in the fields from which they have borrowed,
including computer-mediated communication, digital humanities, new media studies, the
learning sciences, and educational technology. Challenges include the constraints of
technology, the limits of privacy, and reconciling the formal demands of research with
the informal, anywhere, any time qualities of social media use.

Because social media is increasingly everyday and omnipresent, it should be used

by learners and teachers as a tool for experiential, situated learning, and as social
practices deserving of critical attention. Affordances emerge from the interplay of
instructional ecologies and learner styles and cultures-of-use, and continued investigation
of how technology-agnostic social media dynamics are intensified, activated, diminished,
or negated by particular media and situational variables is merited. A key dynamic not
researched in any of the surveyed literature is mobility and the impact of anytime,
anywhere (or always, everywhere) access on learning and how this truly blurs the
increasingly archaic and perhaps irrelevant borders between formal and informal
learning. Other social media, not yet fully explored, might offer affordances for
multimodal, visual, location-based, and different forms of socio-collaborative learning.

It should not be overlooked in either research or practice that all vernacular social
media, and most all educational social media, especially SNECSs, are usually
commercial enterprises. As such, they should be subjected to the same critical scrutiny as
any media used for L2TL as a means or object of learning. Advanced learners especially
can benefit from explicit media literacy instruction (e.g. Buckingham 2003) applied to
social media, with discussion of different media types and sources in the L2, perhaps in
comparison to the home culture/language (Reinhardt & Thorne 2011). The concepts of
user agency, control, and choice—especially in situations where the user is involved
through Web 2.0 mechanisms as a producer of content—should be critically situated and
understood in terms of how language is used in and by social media agents, for what

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
audiences, and for what purposes. It is as crucial for English learners to study how social
media was used in the Brexit vote or the 2016 US elections as much as it is for German
learners to learn about cultural representations in pre-WWII German literature, or for
French learners to understand the role of colonialism in Francophone literature. There is
no question that social media literacies, as they continue to be researched and defined,
will be key to modern language proficiency in the future.

References

Alghasab, M. & Z. Handley (2017). Capturing (non-)collaboration in wiki-mediated

collaborative writing activities: The need to examine discussion posts and editing
acts in tandem. Computer Assisted Language Learning 30.7, 664-691.
Alm, A. (2009). Blogging for self-determination with L2 learner journals. In M. Thomas
(ed.), 202–221.
Androutsopoulos, J. (2015). Networked multilingualism: Some language practices on
Facebook and their implications. International Journal of Bilingualism 19.2, 185–
205.
Antenos-Conforti, E. (2009). Microblogging on Twitter: Social networking in
intermediate Italian classes. In L. Lomicka & G. Lord (eds.), 59–90.
Arnold, N., L. Ducate, & C. Kost (2009). Collaborative writing in wikis: Insights from
culture projects in intermediate German classes. In L. Lomicka & G. Lord (eds.),
115–144.
Arnold, N., L. Ducate, & C. Kost (2012). Collaboration or cooperation? Analyzing group
dynamics and revision processes in wikis. CALICO Journal 29.3, 431–448.
Arshavskaya, E. (2017). Becoming a language teacher: Exploring the transformative
potential of blogs. System 69, 15-25.
Arslan, R. A. & A. Sahin-Kizil (2010). How can the use of blog software facilitate the
writing process of English language learners? Computer Assisted Language
Learning 23.3, 183–197.
Aydin, Z. & S. Yildiz (2014). Using wikis to promote collaborative EFL writing.
Language Learning and Technology 18.1, 160–180.
Back, M. (2013). Using Facebook Data to Analyze Learner Interaction During Study
Abroad. Foreign Language Annals 46.3, 377–401.
Bax, S. (2011). Normalisation revisited: The effective use of technology in language
Education. International Journal of Computer Assisted Language Learning and
Teaching 1.2, 1–15.
Beauvois, M. (1992). Computer-assisted classroom discussion in the foreign language
classroom: Conversation in slow motion. Foreign Language Annals 25.5, 455–
463.
Belz, J. & C. Kinginger (2002). The cross-linguistic development of address form use in
telecollaborative language learning: Two case studies. The Canadian Modern
Language Revue/La revue canadienne des langues vivantes 59, 189–214.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Bikowski, D. & R. Vithanage (2016). Effects of web-based Collaborative writing on
individual L2 writing development. Language Learning and Technology 20.1,
79–99.
Blattner, G. & M. Fiori (2009). Facebook in the language classroom: Promises and
possibilities. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance
Learning 6.1, 17–28.
Blattner, G. & M. Fiori (2011). Virtual social network communities: An investigation of
language learners' development of sociopragmatic awareness and multilitercy
skills. CALICO Journal 29.1, 24–43.
Blattner, G., A. Dalola & L. Lomicka (2015). Tweetsmarts: a pragmatic analysis of well
known native French speaker tweeters. In E. Dixon & M. Thomas (eds.), 213–
236.
Blattner, G. & L. Lomicka (2012). Facebook-ing and the social generation: a new era of
language learning, Apprentisage des Langues et Systèmes d’Information et de
Communication 15.1, https://alsic.revues.org/2413.
Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Bloch, J. (2007). Abdullah’s blogging: A generation 1.5 student enters the blogosphere.
Language Learning and Technology 11.2, 128–141.
Block, D. (2003). The social turn in second language acquisition. Washington, DC:
Georgetown University Press.
Blood, R. (2000). Weblogs: A history and perspective.
http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html.
Blyth, C. (2008). Research perspectives on online discourse and foreign language
learning. In S. Magnan (ed.), Mediating discourse online. Amsterdam: Johns
Benjamins, 47–70.
boyd, d. & N. Ellison (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13.1, 210–230.
Bradley, L., B. Lindstrom & H. Rystedt (2010). Rationalities of collaboration for
language learning in a wiki. ReCALL 22.2, 247–265.
Brick, B. (2011). Social networking sites and language learning. International Journal of
Virtual and Personal Learning Environments 2.3, 18–31.
Brick, B. (2012). The role of social networking sites for language learning in uk higher
education: The views of learners and practitioners. International Journal of
Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching 2.3, 35–53.
Buckingham, D. (2003). Media education: Literacy, learning, and contemporary
Culture. London: Blackwell.
Campbell, A. P. (2003). Weblogs for use with ESL classes. Internet TESL Journal 9.2.
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Campbell-Weblogs.html.
Carroll, K. S. (2008). Puerto Rican language use on MySpace.com. El Centro Journal of
Puerto Rican Studies 20.1, 96–111.
Chapelle, C. & S. Sauro (eds.) (2017). The handbook of technology in second language
teaching and learning. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Chen, H. (2012). Social networking, socialization, and second language writers: the
development of new identities and literacies. Ph.D. Dissertation,
University of Arizona.
Chen, H. (2013). Identity practices of multilingual writers in social networking spaces.
Language Learning and Technology 17.2, 143–170.
Chen, R. T. -H. (2015). L2 blogging: Who thrives and who does not? Language Learning
and Technology 19.2, 177–196.
Chen, W., Y. Shih & G. Liu (2015). Task design and its induced learning effects in a
cross-institutional blog-mediated telecollaboration. Computer Assisted Language
Learning 28.4, 285–305.
Chik, A. & J. Ho (2017). Learn a language for free: Recreational learning among adults.
System 69, 162-171.
Christensen, M. & M. Christensen (2015). Language learner interaction in social network
site virtual worlds. In E. Dixon & M. Thomas (eds.), 193-211.
Chun, D. (1994). Using computer networking to facilitate the acquisition of interactive
competence. System 22, 17–31.
Clark, C. & P. Gruba (2010). The use of social networking sites for foreign language
learning: An autoethnographic study of Livemocha. In C. Steel, M. Keppell, P.
Gerbic & S. Housego (eds.), Curriculum, technology, and transformation for an
unknown future: Proceedings of ASCILITE Sydney 2010, 164–173.
Crum, C. (2015, January 6). Guess how many wordpress.com blogs were created in 2014.
http://www.webpronews.com/guess-how-many-wordpress-com-blogs-were-
created-in-2014-2015-01/.
Cunliffe, D., D. Morris & C. Prys, (2013). Young bilinguals’ language behaviour in
Social networking sites: the use of welsh on facebook. Journal of Computer
Mediated Communication 18, 339–361.
DeHaan, J., N. Johnson, N. Yoshimura & T. Kondo (2012). Wiki and digital video use in
strategic interaction-based experiential EFL learning. CALICO Journal 29.2, 249–
268.
Demaizière, F. & K. Zourou (eds.) (2012). Social media and language learning:
(r)evolution? Apprentisage des Langues et Systèmes d’Information et de
Communication 15.1, https://alsic.revues.org/1695.
DePew, K. (2011). Social media at academia's periphery: Studying multilingual
developmental writers' Facebook composing strategies. The Reading Matrix 11.1,
54–75.
DePew, K. E., & S. Miller-Cochran (2010). Social networking in a second language
engaging multiple literate practices through identity composition. In M. Cox, J.
Jordan, C. Ortmeier-Hooper, & G. G. Schwartz (eds.), Inventing identities in
second language writing. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 273–295.
Dippold, D. (2009). Peer feedback through blogs: Student and teacher perceptions in an
advanced German class. ReCALL, 21.1, 18–36.
Dixon, E. & M. Thomas (eds.) (2015). Researching language learner interaction online:
From social media to MOOCs. San Marcos: CALICO.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Dizon, G. (2016). A comparative study of Facebook vs. paper-and-pencil writing to
improve L2 writing skills. Computer Assisted Language Learning 29.8, 1249-
1258.
Ducate, L. & L. Lomicka (2005). Exploring the blogosphere: Use of web logs in the
foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals 38.3, 410–421.
Ducate, L. & L. Lomicka (2008). Adventures in the blogosphere: From blog readers to
blog writers. Computer Assisted Language Learning 21.1, 9–28.
Ellison, N. B. & d. boyd (2013). Sociality through social network sites. In W. Dutton
(ed.), The Oxford handbook of Internet studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
151-172.
Elola, I. & A. Oskoz (2008). Blogging: Fostering intercultural competence development
in foreign language and study abroad contexts. Foreign Language Annals 41.3,
454–478.
Elola, I., & A. Oskoz (2010). Collaborative writing: Fostering foreign language and
writing conventions development. Language Learning and Technology 14.3, 51–
71.
Facebook (2018). Company info: Facebook newsroom.
http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/.
Farr, F. & L. Murray (eds.) (2016). The Routledge Handbook of Language Learning and
Technology. London: Routledge.
Firth, A. & J. Wagner (1997). On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental
concepts in SLA research. Modern Language Journal 81, 285–300.
Furstenberg, G., S. Levet, K. English & K. Maillet (2001). Giving a virtual voice to the
silent language of culture: The Cultura project. Language Learning and
Technology 5, 55–102.
Gabaudan, O. (2016). Too soon to fly the coop? Online journaling to support students’
learning during their Erasmus study visit. ReCALL 28.2, 123–146.
Gebhard, M., D. Shin & W. Seger (2011). Blogging and emergent l2 literacy
development in an urban elementary school: A functional perspective. CALICO
Journal 28.2, 278–307.
Godwin-Jones, R. (2003). Emerging technologies: Blogs and wikis: Environments for on-
line collaboration. Language Learning and Technology 7.2, 12–16.
Gonzales, A. (2013). Rapport management and online learning: L2 socialization in
Livemocha. In C. Meskill (ed.), 189–215.
Guth, S. (2009). Personal learning environments for language learning. In M. Thomas
(ed.), 451–471.
Harrison, R. (2013). Profiles in social networking sites for language learning. In M. -N.
Lamy & K. Zourou (eds.), 100–116.
Harrison, R. & M. Thomas (2009). Identity in online communities: Social networking
sites and language learning. Business 7.2, 109–124.
Ho, M. & S. Savignon (2007). Face-to-face and computer-mediated peer review in EFL
writing. CALICO Journal 24.2, 267–290.
Huang, H. (2015). From web-based readers to voice bloggers: EFL learners’
perspectives. Computer Assisted Language Learning 28.2, 145–170.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Jin, L. (2018). Digital affordances on WeChat: Learning Chinese as a second language.
Computer Assisted Language Learning 31.1-2, 27-52.
Jin, S. (2015). Using Facebook to promote Korean EFL learners’ intercultural
competence. Language Learning and Technology 19.3, 38–51.
Jones, A. (2015). Social media for informal minority language learning: Exploring welsh
learners’ practices. Journal of Interactive Media in Education 1.7, 1–9.
Jones, R., A. Chik & A. Hafner (eds.) (2015). Discourse and digital practices: Doing
discourse analysis in the digital age. New York, NY: Routledge.
Kelley, J. A. (2010). Social network sites and the ideal L2 self: Using Myspace in a
Chinese EFL class. The JALT CALL Journal 6.1, 17–33.
Kennedy, C. & T. Miceli (2013). In piazza online: Exploring the use of wikis with
beginner foreign language learners. Computer Assisted Language Learning 26.5,
389–411.
Kern, R. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects
on quantity and characteristics of language production. Modern Language Journal
79, 457–476.
Kern, R. (2014). Technology as pharmakon: The promise and perils of the internet for
Foreign language education. Modern Language Journal 98.1, 340–357.
Kern, R. & M. Warschauer (2000). Introduction: Theory and practice of network-based
language teaching. In M. Warschauer & R. Kern (eds.), Network-based language
teaching: Concepts and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–19.
Kessler, G. (2009). Student-initiated attention to form in wiki-based collaborative
writing. Language Learning and Technology 13.1, 79–95.
Kessler, G. & D. Bikowski (2010). Developing collaborative autonomous learning
abilities in computer mediated language learning: Attention to meaning among
students in wiki space. Computer Assisted Language Learning 23.1, 41–58.
Kessler, G., D. Bikowski & J. Boggs (2012). Collaborative writing among second
language learners in academic web-based projects. Language Learning and
Technology 16.1, 91–109.
King, B. W. (2015). Wikipedia writing as praxis: Computer-mediated socialization of
second-language writers. Language Learning and Technology 19.3, 106–123.
Kulavuz-Onal, D. & C. Vásquez (2018). “Thanks, shokran, gracias”: Translingual
practices in a Facebook group. Language Learning and Technology 22.1, 240–
255.
Lafford, B. A. (2009). Toward an ecological CALL: Update to Garrett (1991). Modern
Language Journal 93.s1, 673–696.
Lai, C., X. Hu & B. Lyu (2018). Understanding the nature of learners’ out-of-class
language learning experience with technology. Computer Assisted Language
Learning 31.1-2, 114-143.
Lai, C., C. Lei & Y. Liu (2016). The nature of collaboration and perceived learning in
wiki-based collaborative writing. Australasian Journal of Educational
Technology 32.3, 80–95.
Lam, W. S. E. (2000). Second language literacy and the design of the self: A case study
of a teenager writing on the Internet. TESOL Quarterly 34, 457–483.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Lam, W. S. E. (2004). Second language socialization in a bilingual chat room: Global and
local considerations. Language Learning and Technology 8.3, 44–65.
Lamy, M. -N. (2013). ‘We don't' have to always post stuff to help us learn’: Informal
learning through social networking in a beginners' Chinese group. In C. Meskill
(ed.), 219–137.
Lamy, M. -N. & K. Zourou (eds.) (2013). Social networking for language education.
Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Lankshear, C. & M. Knobel (2006). New literacies: Everyday practices and classroom
learning (2nd edn). Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Lave, J. & E. Wenger (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Lee, J. S. (2006). Exploring the relationship between electronic literacy and heritage
language maintenance. Language Learning and Technology, 10.2, 93–113.
Lee, L. (2009). Promoting intercultural exchanges with blogs and podcasting: A study of
Spanish-American telecollaboration. Computer Assisted Language Learning 22.5,
425–443.
Lee, L. (2012). Engaging study abroad students in intercultural learning through blogging
and ethnographic interviews. Foreign Language Annals 45.1, 7–21.
Lee, H. & P. Wang (2013). Discussing the factors contributing to students’ involvement
in an EFL collaborative wiki project. ReCALL 25, 233–249.
Li, M. & W. Zhu (2017). Explaining dynamic interactions in wiki-based collaborative
writing. Language Learning and Technology 21.2, 96-120.
Liaw, M. & K. English (2013). On-line and off-site: Student-driven development of the
Taiwan-France teleocolaborative project Beyond These Walls. In M. -N. Lamy &
K. Zourou, 158–175.
Lin, M. H., N. Groom, & C. -Y. Lin (2013). Blog-assisted learning in the esl writing
classroom: a phenomenological analysis. Educational Technology and Society
16.3, 130–139.
Lin, C. -H., M. Warschauer & R. Blake (2016). Language learning through social
networks: Perception and reality. Language Learning and Technology 20.1, 124–
147.
Liu, M., K. Abe, M. Cao, S. Liu, D. Ok, J. Park, C. Parrish & V. Sardegna (2015). An
analysis of social network websites for language learning: Implications for
teaching and learning ESL. CALICO Journal 32.1, 113–152.
Liu, M., M. K. Evans, E. Horwitz, S. Lee, M. Mccrory, J. Park & C. Parrish (2013). A
study of the use of social network sites for language students. In M. -N. Lamy &
K. Zourou (eds.), 137–157.
Liu, S. H.- J. (2017). Text-based negotiated interaction of NNS-NNS and NNS-NS dyads
on Facebook. ReCALL 29.3, 294-312.
Lomicka, L. & G. Lord (eds.) (2009), The next generation: Social networking and online
collaboration in foreign language learning CALICO Monograph Series, No. 9.
San Marcos: CALICO.
Lomicka, L. & G. Lord (2011). A tale of tweets: Analyzing microblogging among
language learners. System 40, 48–63.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Lund, A. (2008). Wikis: A collective approach to language production. ReCALL 20, 35–
54.
Mak, B. & D. Coniam (2008). Using wikis to enhance and develop writing skills among
secondary school students in Hong Kong. System 36, 437–455.
McBride, K. (2009). Social networking sites in foreign language classes: Opportunities
fornre-creation. In L. Lomicka & G. Lord (eds.), 35–58.
McCarty, S. (2009). Social networking behind student lines in Japan. In M. Thomas (ed.),
181–201.
Meskill, C. (ed.) (2013). Online Teaching and Learning: Sociocultural Perspectives.
London: Bloomsbury.
Mills, N. (2011). Situated learning through social networking communities: The
development of joint enterprise, mutual engagement and shared repertoire.
CALICO Journal 28.2, 345-368.
Nations, D. (2015). What is social media? Explaining the big trend.
http://webtrends.about.com/od/web20/a/social-media.htm.
Norris, J. & L. Ortega (2006). The value and practice of research synthesis for language
teaching. In J. Norris & L. Ortega (eds.), Synthesizing research on language
learning and teaching. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1–50.
Orsini-Jones, M., B. Brick & L. Pibworth (2013). Practicing language interaction in
social networking sites: The ‘expert student’s’ perspective on personalized
language learning. In B. Zou, M. Xing, C. H. Xiang, Y. Wang & M. Sun (eds.),
Computer-Assisted Foreign Language Teaching and Learning: Technological
Advances. Hershey: IGI, 40–53.
Ortega, L. (1997). Processes and outcomes in networked classroom interaction: Defining
the research agenda for L2 computer-assisted classroom discussion. Language
Learning and Technology 1.1, 82–93.
Özdemir, E. (2017). Promoting EFL learners’ intercultural communication effectiveness:
a focus on Facebook. Computer Assisted Language Learning 30.6, 510-528.
Page, R., D. Barton, J. W. Unger & M. Zappovigna (eds.) (2014). Researching
Language and Social Media: A Student Guide. London: Routledge.
Pasfield-Neofitou, S. (2011). Online domains of language use: Second language learners'
experiences of virtual community and foreignness. Language Learning and
Technology 15.2, 92–108.
Pellet, S. (2012). Wikis for building content knowledge in the foreign language
classroom. CALICO Journal 29.2, 224–248.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon 9.5, 2–6.
Prichard, C. (2013). Training L2 learners to use Facebook appropriately and effectively.
CALICO Journal 30.2, 204–225.
Raith, T. (2009). The use of weblogs in language education. In M. Thomas (ed.), 274–
291.
Reinhardt, J. (2012). Accommodating divergent frameworks in analysis of technology-
mediated interaction. In M. Dooly & R. O’Dowd (eds.), Researching online
interaction and exchange in foreign language education: Current trends and
issues. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 45–77.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Reinhardt, J. & H. -I. Chen (2013). An ecological analysis of social networking site-
mediated identity development. In M. -N. Lamy & K. Zourou (eds.), 11–30.
Reinhardt, J. & J. Ryu (2013). Using social network-mediated bridging activities to
develop socio-pragmatic awareness in elementary Korean. International Journal
of Computer Assisted Language Learning and Teaching 3.3, 18–33.
Reinhardt, J. & S. L. Thorne (2011). Beyond comparisons: Frameworks for developing
digital L2 literacies. In N. Arnold & L. Ducate (eds.), Present and future
promises of CALL: From theory and research to new directions in language
teaching. San Marcos, TX: CALICO, 257–280.
Reinhardt, J. & V. Zander (2011). Social networking in an intensive English program
classroom: A language socialization perspective. CALICO Journal 28.2, 326–344.
Rosell-Aguilar, F. (2013). Podcasting for language learning through iTunes U: The
learner’s view. Language Learning and Technology 17.3, 74–93.
Rott, S. & E. Weber (2013). Preparing students to use Wiki software as a collaborative
learning tool. CALICO Journal, 30.2, 170–203.
Schreiber, B. R. (2015). ‘I am what I am’: Multilingual identity and digital
translanguaging. Language Learning and Technology 19.3, 69–87.
Selwyn, N. (Ed.). (2008). Education 2.0? Designing the web for teaching and learning.
London: Teaching and Learning Research Program.
Shah, S. (2016, May 12). The history of social networking.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/features/the-history-of-social-networking/.
Sockett, G. (2014). The online informal learning of English. Basingstoke: Palgrave-
Macmillan.
Solmaz, O. (2015). Multilingual students’ management of transnational identities in
online participatory sites. Ph.D.Dissertation. University of Arizona.
Sylven, P. & L. K. Sundqvist (2016). Extramural English in teaching and learning.
Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Standage, T. (2013). Writing on the wall: Social media - the first 2,000 years. New York:
Bloomsbury.
Statista (2018). Number of social media users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (in billions).
http://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-
users/.
Stevenson, M. & M. Liu (2010). Learning a language with Web 2.0: Exploring the use of
social networking features of foreign language learning websites. CALICO
Journal 27.2, 233–259.
Storch, N. (2011). Collaborative writing in L2 contexts: Processes, outcomes, and future
directions. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 31, 275–288.
Sun, Y. & Y. Chang (2012). Blogging to learn: Becoming EFL academic writers through
collaborative dialogues. Language Learning and Technology 16.1, 43–61.
Thomas, M. (ed.) (2009). Handbook of research on Web 2.0 and second language
learning. Hershey: IGI.
Thorne, S. L. (2003). Artifacts and cultures of use in intercultural communication.
Language Learning and Technology 7, 38–67.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Thorne, S. L. & I. Fischer (2012). Online gaming as sociable media. Apprentissage des
Langues et Systèmes d’Information et de Communication 15.1,
https://alsic.revues.org/2450.
van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural
perspective. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Vandergriff, I. (2015). Exercising learner agency in forum interactions in a professionally
moderated language learning networking site. In E. Dixon & M. Thomas (eds.),
213–236.
Vandergriff, I. (2016). Second-language discourse in the digital world: Linguistic and
social practices in and beyond the networked classroom.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies
30.6,1024–1054.
Vurdien, R. (2013). Enhancing writing skills through blogging in an advanced English as
a Foreign Language class in Spain. Computer Assisted Language Learning 26.2,
126–143.
Wang, S. & D. Kim (2014). Incorporating Facebook in an intermediate-level Chinese
language course: A case study. IALLT Journal of Language Learning
Technologies 44.1, 38-78.
Wang, S. & C. Vásquez (2012). Web 2.0 and second language learning: What does the
research tell us? CALICO Journal 29.3, 412–430.
Ward, J. (2004). Blog assisted language learning (BALL): Push button publishing for the
pupils. TEFL Web Journal, 3(1), 1–16.
Ware, P. (2005)."Missed" communication in online communication: Tensions in a
German-American telecollaboration. Language Learning and Technology 9.2, 64
–89.
Warner, C. & H. -I. Chen (2017). Designing talk in social networks: What Facebook
teaches about conversation. Language Learning and Technology 21.2, 121–138.
Warschauer, M. & D. Grimes (2007). Audience, authorship, and artifact: The emergent
semiotics of Web 2.0. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 27, 1–23.
Warschauer, M. (ed.) (1996). Telecollaboration in foreign language learning. Honolulu:
University of Hawai‘i Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center.
Wikipedia (2017). About Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About.
Wikipedia (2017). History of wikis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wikis.
Wiktionary (2017). “Wiki”. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiki.
Williams, L., L. Abraham & E. Bostelmann (2014). A survey-driven study of the use
of digital tools for language learning and teaching. In J. P. Guikema & L.
Williams (eds.), Digital literacies in foreign and second language education. San
Marcos, TX: CALICO, 29–67.
Wilson, R., S. Gosling & L. Graham (2012). A review of Facebook research in the social
sciences. Perspectives on Psychological Science 7.3, 203–220.
Yang, D. (2011). Learner interpretations of shared space in multilateral English blogging.
Language Learning and Technology 15.1, 122–146.

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite
Yang Y., C. Crook & C. O'Malley (2014). Can a social networking site support
afterschool group learning of Mandarin? Learning, Media and Technology 39.3,
267–282.
Yen, Y., H. Hou & K. Chang (2015). Applying role-playing strategy to enhance learners’
writing and speaking skills in EFL courses using Facebook and Skype as learning
tools: A case study in Taiwan. Computer Assisted Language Learning 28.5, 383–
406.
Yim, S., & M. Warschauer (2017). Web-based collaborative writing in L2 contexts:
Methodological insights from text mining. Language Learning and Technology
21.2, 146–165.
Zhao, S., S. Grasmuck & J. Martin (2008). Identity construction on Facebook: Digital
empowerment in anchored relationships. Computers in Human Behavior 24,
1816–1836.
Zhu, Y. -Q. & H. -G. Chen (2015). Social media and human need satisfaction:
Implications for social media marketing. Business Horizons 58, 335–345.
Zourou, K. (2012). On the attractiveness of social media for language learning: A look at
the state of the art. Apprentissage des Langues et Systèmes d’Information et de
Communication 15.1, https://alsic.revues.org/2436.
Zourou, K. & M. -N. Lamy (2013). Introduction. In M. -N. Lamy & K. Zourou (eds.), 1-
10.
Zourou, K. & M. Loiseau (2013). Bridging design and language interaction and reuse in
livemocha's culture space. In M. -N. Lamy & K. Zourou (eds.), 77–79.
Zourou, K., A. Potolia & F. Zourou (2017). Informal social networking for language
learning: Insights into autonomy stances. In T. Lewis, A. Rivens Mompean & T.
Cappellini (eds.), Learner autonomy and Web 2.0. San Marcos, TX: CALICO,
141-167.

JONATHON REINHARDT (PhD, Penn State) is Associate Professor of English Applied

Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona.
His research focuses on technology-enhanced second and foreign language pedagogy and
learning, especially with emergent technologies like social media and digital gaming. His
work has appeared in numerous edited volumes and journals, including CALICO Journal
and Language Learning and Technology, on whose editoral boards he serves. He will
serve as President of the Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium
(CALICO) in 2019-2020.
1423 E University Dr rm 445
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA

Social Media in L2TL: Blogs, Wikis, & Social Networking

Jonathon Reinhardt

State of the Art Review

Language Teaching (2018)
Pre‐print version – do not cite