Using facebook to teach honorifics

1. Using facebook to teach honorifics University of Pennsylvania Insook Kang and Haewon Cho

2. Learner Profile in the Digital Age • Digital Natives (Prensky, 2001): Digital Technology and virtual worlds are “integral parts” of life; they spend 30-40 % of free time online. • Generation M (born in early 1980s and late 1990s): Media savvy, Natural multi-taskers (Vie, 2008) • The Thumb Tribe: Heavy users of instant communication technologies (Popp, 2007) • Web 2.0 technologies: Both creator and consumer of contents in new media • The Millennial Generation (Generation Y): Significant users of social network sites such as Facebook (400 mm) and Twitter (50 mm) http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/1107/feature3.html

3. Facebook • It is a fast-growing and the most widely used social network site (2009, www.compete.com): 400 mm users worldwide • No. 1 in the most-visited sites on the web (the 1,000 most-visited sites on the web, Google List, Google and YouTube excluded). • “Hip, hot and happening site” (Vander Veer, 2008) • Very high penetration rate in college: 85 % of college students use Facebook (65 % log in daily, 85 % log in at least once a week, 93% log in at least once a month) Facebook has become an integral part of students’ lives

4. What do people do with Facebook? • “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” • Personal Use • Linking to people: Commenting, Chats • Sharing what’s going on in one’s life: Wall-posting, Status-updates • Sharing information: Video/picture uploading/exchange • Community Building • Group of similar interests • Discussion wall, forum • Business Pages • Sharing one’s business and products with Facebook users. • Interacting with customers • Promotion: World-of-mouth, Facebook ads

5. Using social networking sites in teaching languages: Benefits • Exposes students to authentic and rich language inputs • Provides opportunities to learn and practice language outside of classroom • Provides individualized opportunities to communicate with peers, instructors and native speakers • Builds “a sense of community”, Helpful to build a rapport between an instructor and students, and between students • Increases language learner motivation and engagement (Mills, 2009) • Promotes socio-pragmatic awareness (Blattner and Fiori, 2009)

6. Learning honorifics using Facebook • Honorification in Korean is difficult to master since it involves multiple factors among the interlocutors such as age, social status, relationship, and formality, etc. • Facebookis beneficial in learning Korean honorifics for the following reasons: • Meet ACTFL 5Cs – communication, culture, comparison, community, and connection • To use honorifics more in a practical setting with native speakers and peers • To give students more concrete concept of honorification provided by profile picture id and relationships • More fun by learning through the most popular social networking community tool

7. Research Questions 1. Is Facebook useful in learning Korean honorifics and honorific speech style in writing? 2. What are the advantages and challenges of using Facebook? 3. What is the students’ attitude toward using Facebook in Korean class?

8. Method • As a part of class requirements, students interacted on Facebook 1-2 times per week in the 2nd semester of beginning Korean II and advanced Korean II. • Period: 1.5 months (beginning) and 3 months (advanced) toward the end of the semester • Participants:

9. Procedure • A series of assignments/activities which focused on different aspects of 5Cs were given to students to interact on Facebook. Students were asked to use appropriate honorific speech styles in their postings . • Students took a pre-test on recognition and production of honorifics (subject honorification and honorific expressions) before they engaged in Facebook interaction. • The same post test was given to see if students’ knowledge on Korean honorifics had improved in the end of the semester. • A survey was also conducted to find out students’ opinion on their use of Facebook in learning Korean honorifics and in general.

10. Facebook in Korean Class: Intro • Intro Session • Create a new account in Facebook • Change a language setting to Korean • Create a personal profile • Invite friends • Provide a handout of Facebook jargon

11. 자기 소개 – Profile 작성 (Advanced)

12. Focus on Communication: Interpersonal: wall-posting/ commenting (Beginning) • practice of a specific grammar item: eg. 으면서 feedback

13. Focus on Communication: Interpersonal: Status Update/commenting (Advanced) • Wall posting/Status Update • 1 time per week • 2 comments per week

14. Focus on Communication: Interpersonal- 모국어 화자와의 교류 (Beginning) 마이클님 • Making friends with Korean teachers in Korea

15. Focus on Communication: Interpersonal- 모국어 화자와의 교류 (Advanced) • Making friends with Korean students in Korea • Beginning from late March • Grad students at Kyunghee University Linguistic feedback, modeling

16. Focus on Communication: Interpretive-Final PT 조사 (Advanced) • Final project • Current issues in Korea • As a part of research, students asked for NS friends inputs on their topics. • Students included the information they got from NS friends in the final PT and paper.

17. Focus on Communication: Presentational - 가족 소개(Beginning) • Topics: My family, my last spring break, spring pictures etc. • Read friends’ postings • Write at least 2 comments

18. Focus on Communication: Presentational - Posting Composition to Notes (Advanced) • Composition • Post updated composition/short writings to “NOTES” • Read friends’ postings and write at least 2 comments

19. Focus on Comparison- Video posting: Korean commercials vs. American commercials (Advanced) • Students posted their favorite commercial to the Wall. • In class, students compared Korean and American ads and discussed similarities and differences.

20. Focus on Communities: Making new friends (Advanced) • Making friends with Korean students at Kyunghee Univ. and peer students in the other class

21. Focus Connection/ Culture: - Final PT 조사 (Advanced) • Final project • Current issues in Korean society • As a part of research, students asked questions of their interests to NS friends. • Students included the information they got from NS friends to the final PT and paper. • Connection to other disciplines (education, social issue, etc.) • Learn culture in current Korea

22. Focus Connection/ Culture: - Final Project (Advanced) • Final project • Current issues in Korea • Connection to other disciplines (education, social issue, etc.) • Learn up to date culture of Korea

23. Focus on culture, comparison, and connection: Reading others’ postings (Beginning)

24. Error Correction • Beginning Korean II • Individual correction in comments • In class error correction: copy and paste comments in word.doc and correct errors in class • Advanced Korean II • One brief honorific review session offered • Each student was given a collection of their writings with critical errors including honorification errors marked. • Students were asked to self-correct errors and revise their posts. • An individually customized error correction section was added to each test.

25. Example of teacher feedback (Beginning) feedback

26. Enhancing 5Cs through Facebook Wall posting, Status-updating, Commenting, Chatting, Image uploading Inputs from native speakers, postings related to Korean culture Making new friends, Creating a group Korean vs. American commercials Posts on the topics of current events

27. Result – In-class survey: Facebook usage- frequency

28. Result: Language Use • Beginning II • Honorifics were used when addressing to instructors, native speakers, and their parents • Students used informal polite ending “요” in comments and wall postings • Students tried plain form “ㄴ다” when chatting with classmates and wall posting • Advanced II • Honorifics were used when addressing to instructors, native speakers, and their parents • The informal polite ending “요” was mostly used in commenting, wall posting, and status updates. • The formal polite ending “습니다” was frequently used in video/image postings on the Wall. • Native speakers used both “요” and “습니다” endings. • The plain speech style ending “ㄴ다” was used in composition postings.

29. Student Survey on Facebook use - Attention 1 Never, 2 Rarely, 3 Sometimes, 4 Frequently, 5 always

30. Student Survey on Facebook use – Helpful? 1 Never, 2 Rarely, 3 Sometimes, 4 Frequently, 5 always

31. Student Survey: what did you like about using Facebook? • Beginning Level • Helped us look what modern Korean language looked like • Interaction with native Koreans • Helped me use Korean in more natural setting (outside of classroom) • Adding pictures and commenting on them. • Advanced Level • A good way to interact with others • An opportunity to practice writing and learn about other students’ perspectives • More practical language usage in more natural setting • Easily accessible • Liked working at other peoples’ photos.

32. Student Survey: What did you like least about using facebook? • Beginning Level • Hard to keep up with more than one post per week. • Difficult to look up words to form responses • Unable to navigate • Typing • Advanced Level • Difficult to think of creative things to say on my wall • Quite a hassle, forced interaction with people • Hard to maintain, confusing • Forgot to check the Korean one because of the English one

33. Acquisition of honorific expressions and (으)시- Pre-test and Post-test result (Total) 11.4 pt 6.7 pt 69.5 69.3 62.6 58.1 Adv Beg

34. Acquisition of honorific expressions and (으)시- Pre-test and Post-test result (Recognition vs. Production) 8.8 pt 20.7 pt 5.8 pt 2.6 pt

35. Pre-test and Post-test result: - Discussion • Beginning level students paid more attention to honorific usage while advanced level students paid more attention to grammatical accuracy • Overall, beginning level students seemed to have more positive attitude toward the effectiveness of Facebook usein improving their knowledge on honorifics and accuracy on grammar. • Students’ post test scores on honorifics increased in both levels(11.4 points for beginning, 6.7 points for advanced). Especially, the recognition score was significantly improved by 20.7 points in the beginning level which had on-going honorific practices in class. • While only one honorific review session was provided, there were increases in the post test scores in both recognition (8.8) and production (5.8) scores in advanced II learners.

36. Discussion:Using Facebook - Benefits • To teach honorifics and honorific speech styles • Provides authentic contexts, gives more practicality • Receives authentic inputs from native speakers (modeling) • Supplements classroom instructions • Helpful to improve students’ pragmatic competence • Makes learning more exciting, dynamic, and engaging • Provides more effective error correction for beginning class • Other benefits • Provides challenges: I + 1 (new vocabulary items and structures) • Provides a sense of community • Fosters students’ creativity • Helpful for students to practice both informal and formal languages • Helpful for students to learn how Korean people actually interact on the social networking media • Provides real time language and culture of current Korea

37. Discussion:Using Facebook - Challenges • to teach honorifics and honorific speech styles • Error correction • Requires instructor’s intervention • Difficult to create an activity which includes honorifics • Some students tend to avoid using difficult structures and honorifics. • Need a detailed guidelines, reminder • Somewhat artificial • Other issues • Privacy issues: digital personal space • Conflict between English and Korean Facebooks

38. Implications/Suggestions • Facebook offers students the opportunities to model and practice Korean honorification and thus is helpful to improve their pragmatic competence. • The use of Facebook possibly increases students’ motivation to learn due to its authenticity and entertaining nature . • Facebook activities should be well designed to meet students’ and curriculum needs (5 Cs). • Precise guidelines including appropriate frequency of participation and supervision are required. • Facebook can be used even in the beginning level. Even with their limited linguistic ability, Facebook helps beginning level students to internalize honorific usage better through a variety of activities and actual interaction with NS. • More studies should be done to examine the effectiveness of Facebook and other social media sites to teach or learn foreign languages.

39. References • http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/ • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook • Blattner, G. and Fiori, F. (2009) “Facebook in the Language Classroom: Promises and Possibilities.” International Journal of Instructional Technology ad Distance Learning, Vol. 6 (1). • Mendez, J. et al. (2009). To Friend or Not to Friend: Academic Interaction on Facebook. International Journal of Instructional Technology ad Distance Learning, Vol. 6 (9). • Mills, N. (2009) “Facebook and the use of social networking tools to enhance language learner motivation and engagement.” NEALLT conference, Yale University, New haven, CT. • Popp, Trey (2007). “Digital Nativeds in tomorrow’s Classroom.” The Penn Gazette • Prensky, M (2008). “The Role of Technology in Teaching and the Classroom,” Educational Technology • Prensky, M (2001). “Digital natives, digital immigrants, Part II: Do you really think differently”? On the Horizon. NBC University Press, 9(6). • Social Media Usage Statistics 2010. http://www.joesblogg.com/2010/03/social-media-usage-statistics-2010/ • Vie, S. (2008) “Digital Divide 2.0: ‘Generation M” and Online Social Networking Sites in the Composition Classroom. Science Direct: Computer and Composition 25. • Ward, D. (2009) “Social Networking: a Game Change for Language Learning?” Center for Applied Linguistics and Language Education blog http://calleteach.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/social-networking-a-game-changer-for-language-learning/

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41. Providing meaningful contexts

42. 좋아하는 공항: 원어민과 교류 correction