Metaphors for social media‐enhanced foreign language teaching and learning

Reinhardt, J. (2020). Metaphors for social media-enhanced foreign language teaching and learning. Foreign Language Annals, 53(2), 234-242.

This thought-provoking article proposes a set of new metaphors to better understand how social media can be effectively incorporated to enhance second language teaching and learning. The author provides a review of the established metaphors  of computer as tutor or tool that have been commonly used in traditional computer-assisted language learning  (CALL) and goes on to discuss the need to re-conceptualize metaphors in the age of social media.

The new metaphors proposed, Windows, Mirrors, Doorways and Playgrounds are described in relation to how each can provide learners with authentic learning opportunities. The author provides practical examples of how language instructors can use social media with learners to enable them to gain first hand experience of how native users of a language interact and communicate, to present reflections of themselves in social media, to participate in authentic sharing and distribution of content in social media and to participate in playful interaction with each other.  

Retrievable from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/flan.12462