Forming Learner Communities with Twitter in EFL Context
Ayse Taskiran
Aras Bozkurt
Belgin Aydın
Anadolu University
Turkey
aysetaskiran@anadolu.edu.tr
arasbozkurt@gmail.com
baydin@anadolu.edu.tr
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of Twitter, a social networking site, on
forming online communities by students who learn English as a foreign language (EFL). The
Twitter competition with different themes from curriculum for creative writing was conducted
at Anadolu University, School of Foreign Languages for four weeks. For the purposes of the
research, an explanatory sequential mixed methods design was employed. Quantitative data was
examined through Social Network Analysis (SNA) and qualitative data was analyzed through
content analysis of the tweets. Findings of this study showed that language learning is activated
through Twitter, and this platform is convenient for interacting socially and forming community
among the learners. Assuming that learning in general and language learning in particular is a
social process, Twitter activity in this study proved to serve as a promoting platform enhancing
writing activities outside the classroom.
In 21st century as the Millenium generation has evolved, practices appealing to this
generation has gained diversity and designs in this direction have been made. The Millenium
generation, which is also called digital natives and netizens is born to technology. This
generation interprets technology as a part of their daily lives and internalizes this. It is an
undeniable fact that every kind of change taking place in social life affects teaching-learning
directly. Recent research shows that social networks, such as Twitter, have started to be used
in foreign language teaching (e.g., Aydın, 2014; Greenhow & Gleeson, 2012; Johnson, 2015).
Twitter as a microblogging is such tool that enhances student collaboration and
interaction. Learners engage in meaningful communication outside the classroom by using the
target language. They also get the advantage of improving their language skills with the
immediate feedback from other learners and teachers as well. Although many research has
recently taken use of social networking in language learning process in te spot light, in Turkish
foreign language learning context not much research has focused on the use of social networks
such as Twitter. The overall intent of this mixed methods research is to find out the effect of
Twitter use in EFL learning process at School of Foreign Languages in Anadolu University,
Turkey.
In formulation of a theoretical perspective for studying participation in creative
writing activity in Twitter, social constructivist theory provides a useful prototype. Based on
Vygotsky's social constructivist theory, education does not merely mean a cognitive basis for
improvement, but also a socio-cultural activity (Vygotsky, 1978). According to Vygotsky,
learning takes place in a social environment in which individuals learn from one another by
constant interacting and observing. Twitter provides a social platform where language learning
can be enhanced through collaboration and interaction. It also paves the way for getting help
form others in language learning process. This means, the concept "zone of proximal
development" by Vygotsky (1978) can be well achieved through discussion threads in which
participants give and receive immediate feedback from many different sources, namely
different participants. Getting assistance of peers help learners perform better than they do
when they are on their own.
Literature Review
Social networking sites (SNS) have recently received great attention in higher
education. These networks help individuals create, find and then share knowledge (Selwyn,
2007). These systems put the learner at the center as the individual user or groups of users can
freely make their own choices to discuss and choose their own partners of group friends to
work together with. Higher education instructors not only in face to face education but also in
distance education have begun to combine education delivery with SNSs (Holcomb, Brady and
Smith, 2010). Distance education courses result in high levels of social presence among
students (Anderson,2005) and higher academic success when they develop community of
practice (Barab and Duffy, 2000). Therefore, in addition to commercial SNNs, those created
specifically for educational purposes have emerged. According to recent research, these
networks enhance personal interaction, engagement, collaboration, learner autonomy, social
presence and sense of community (e.g. Holcomb, Brady and Smith, 2010; McCann, 2009;
Schroeder and Grenbowe, 2009). Ractham et al. (2010) explored the use of social networking
technology, specifically Facebook, to enhance education in a college level course. Based on
situated learning theory, they wanted to form a community of practice within a college
classroom setting using social networking technology in Thmmasat University in 2009.
According to the results, 78% of students thought it was useful to use Facebook as a
supplemental learning tool. Seventy percent of the participants believed that Facebook Quizzes
had strong potential for future courses, and 94% of the students wanted researchers to integrate
mobile phone technology for the class.
Microblogging can foster process-oriented learning due to the fact that it can allow
continuous and transparent communication between students and lecturers (Ebner, Lienhardt,
Rohs and Meyer, 2010) and they are used for teaching and learning activities in EFL classes
successfully (Yunus, Salehi and Chenzi, 2012). Due to the imposed restriction on the message
length, Twitter users learn how to express their ideas or questions clearly, concisely and
articulately (Dunlap and Lowenthal, 2009; Dhir, Buragga and Boreqqah, 2013) and the use of
Twitter fosters writing, comprehension, reading, and even critical thinking because users learn
how to write effectively and address a large audience of people properly (Ebner et al., 2010;
Dhir, Buragga and Boreqqah, 2013). In sum, the constraint in tweets requires brainstorming
and ends up with creativity. A Twitter study in higher education ccontext was conducted by
Forkosh-Baruch and Hershkovitz (2012) in Israel. In the study tweets posted by the participants
were analyzed in terms of how they contributed to informal learning and findings revealed that
Twitter enhanced informal learning within the community by promoting knowledge sharing.
Supporting the view that SNNs contributing language learning and teaching, the use of Twitter
in a French class was found to have positive effects on language teaching and learning
(Lomicka & Lord, 2012), and it fostered collaboration among students in an English class
(Koenig, 2011). The perceived benefits of Twitter use for language learning was examined in
relation to constructivist theory in a French class in Johnson's study (2015). The comments by
the students indicated that they enjoyed using Twitter for fast, fun and easy communication.
Regardless of the varying language proficiency levels, the students were participating eagerly
in answering questions, checking replies from tweet-pals. Twitter as a microblogging platform
was used in an EFL context in the study by Borau et. al. (2009). Chinese EFL learners
participated in the Twitter activity. Results of a bilingual questionnaire indicated that the
students had positive opinions with respect to communication in target language on Twitter
and Twitter was found to be a suitable tool to train communicative and culture competence
anytime anywhere instead of face-to-face interaction. According to review of the studies on
Twitter use in foreign language teaching and learning by Aydın (2014), Twitter can be used as
an educational tool to enhance collaborative language learning, reading and writing skills. On
the other hand, Twitter might also have some drawbacks reagarding cyberbullying, sharing
inappropriate content and violent content (Butler, 2010; Manzo, 2009). The general purpose of
this study is to investigate a microblogging platform’s potential for EFL students in terms of
improving communication in target language outside the classroom. The study intends to
examine interaction patterns of such an implementation within social network analysis (SNA)
and additionally examine content produced by the participants and reveal their thoughts. On
this basis, this research intends to seek for an answer for the following research questions:
 Are microblogging platforms effective for forming learning communities in EFL
context?
 What are the pros and cons of micro blogging platforms in terms of writing practices?
Method
This mixed methods research involves collection of both quantitative and qualitative
data. The quantitative data analysis will involve social network analysis (SNA). The SNA will
provide communication patterns, which will be examined in the scope of forming learner
communities. SNA provides powerful ways to map, summarize and visualize networks and
identify key vertices that occupy strategic locations and positions within the matrix of links
(Hansen, Shneiderman and Smith, 2010). For qualitative data analysis, the content analysis of
the tweets will be done. Content analysis will include textual data of tweets collected through
SNA. The analysis will focus on nodes (individual actors- learners in this case) and ties or
edges (relationships or interactions) that connect them. The sample of this research in
quantitative phase is 91 English preparatory students who volunteered to participate in a four
week creative writing Twitter Competition. They are the first year students who attend to
English preparatory course in School of Foreign Languages. The sample of qualitative phase
is a total of 5854 tweets. The Twitter competition for creative writing is conducted at Anadolu
University, School of Foreign Languages in spring 2015 term. Twitter competition lasts four
weeks with different themes for each week determined based on the curriculum followed.
Findings
1st phase (SNA): A total of 91 EFL learners posted 5769 tweets. The statistics and dataviz are
given in Table1. Three students out of 91 didn’t engage in other learners except tweeting (G7).
In some components (sub-networks), tightly connected/unified community formation was
observed (G2, G3, G4, G5, and G6). In G1, in which institution’s twitter account can be seen
in the middle, out-hub & spoke support network formation was observed. Interestingly, the
vertices in G1 did not interact with each other and only engaged with institution’s Twitter
account.
2nd phase-A (Content analysis of tweets): Researchers of this article examined all the tweets in
terms of grammar and vocabulary use. According to the research findings, even if the students
tended to use vocabulary items that mostly their coursebooks cover, they still included new
words or phrases in their tweets. It is also observed that EFL learners usually ignored
grammatical rules. In other words, EFL learners generally focused on function rather than form
in terms of language use. Users mostly used emoticons to reflect their moods regarding to
tweets.
Some examples from 1st weeks’ tweets are given in Table 2.
Table 2. Tweet examples for creative writing (from week one, 1st theme)
 wo is the difference between them i.e wo men = wisdom of (wo) men �
 Scientists say 'women learn foreign languages easier than men.' This is about
women are men difference brain. #anadoluprep
 Money can buy everything that a man wants like a beatiful woman or a good car
but cant buy what a woman wants. #anadoluprep
 If woman screaming to you,still you have a chance to fix it. But if woman in
silence, start worry about it #anadoluprep
 Women spend much more money than men but some clothes deserve it. :((
#anadoluprep http://t.co/X6MDrYjY6p
 male babies walk around distracted, female babies most of the time they spend
Table 1. Social Network Analysis of creative writing completion
Vertices: 94
Unique Edges: 85
Edges With Duplicates:
5769
Total Edges: 5854
Self-Loops: 1264
Connected Components:
5
Single-Vertex Connected
Components: 3
Max. Vertices in a
Connected Component:
85
Max. Edges in a
Connected Component:
5820
Max. Geodesic Distance
(Diameter): 4
Average Geodesic
Distance: 2,1663
Graph Density:
0,0308853
Modularity: 0,019205
 #anadoluprep men attack with his punch.women attack with her words.
 The difference between men and women. A woman thinks whole possibilities.
#anadoluprep http://t.co/OcCNi709vY
Discussion and Conclusion
In this research, microblogging for creative writing activaties was examined with the
scope of forming lerner communites through an explanatory mixed research design.
SNA showed that with 5769 tweets, EFL learners seemed to show enthusiasm in contributing
the writing activity in target language. In some areas in the community patterns some tightly
connected/unified community formation was observed. This can indicate that learners acted as
both receivers and message creators. In some areas, it is seen that there are some very central
nodes.That is, some students were more active than the others. They acted as a hub or
connector. This might seem to be a weakness in social communities as in the case of leaving
of these central nodes can damage the community. However, in this study those central nodes
have no such negative effect on the community because all individuals are at the same time
connected to the main hub, which is anadoluprep. In some areas of the pattern, it is observed
that smaller communites were also created. This might indicate that, learners tend to engage in
communication in smaller communities for the purpose of real communication rather than the
competition. This finding is promisng in terms of Twitter's being a convenient platform for
using language for real purposes outside the classroom. According to the findings derived from
SNA, it can be concluded that Twitter is an ideal medium for community formation and
facilitating interaction within the community. Assuming that learning in general and language
learning particular is a social process, these kinds of activities should be integrated into
curriculum to transform language learning beyond the classrooms and to transform it into a
daily activity in online social networks, which is generally perceived as a routine by digital
generations.
Microblogging services, such as twitter, support creative writing activities because the
constraints in the length of the tweets force learners to be more selective for word choice and
to be more creative to express themselves in a single tweet which requires more involvement
during the learning process. Besides, these activities support vocabulary learning which is an
important area in language learning. However, it is also found that while the consideration
improves creativity and vocabulary, use of proper grammar is usually ignored by EFL learners.
This research also provided some insights regarding the use of multimedia to support
writing skill of a language. It is thought that by employing textual content, writing primarily
and reading skill at the backchannel can be improved. However, integrating additional videos
can support speaking skill primarily and listening skill at the back channel. Within a holistic
perspective, the four skills are interrelated and designing these kinds of learning activities can
lead to effective, efficient and attractive learning opportunities for EFL learners.
The content analysis of the tweets revealed that most students tended to ignore grammar
rules while communicating. Still it was observed that they had no serious problems with
understanding each others' messages. In other words, the communication did not seem to be
interrupted by the grammatical mistakes. We can conclude that learners seem to take conveying
their messages more seriously than writing properly. Another finding showed that the students
were willing to use new vocabulary in order to make their tweets recognized. Their search for
new vocabulary can be regarded as a positive impact of Twitter on creative writing skills and
motivation. Similar to grammatical mistakes, spelling mistakes were also ignored by most of
the students. That seemed to have no communication gap due to spelling mistakes. All in all,
findings show that Twitter can be considered as a convenient platform that enhances
communicative competence without face-to-face interaction. Also, this study shows that if
social networks are used appropriately, they can foster language learning with the social,
collaborative principles of Web 2.0 by providing learners with real purposes for using language
beyond the classroom.
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