Integrating Social Media and Web 2.0 for enhancing English language skills: tools for Collaboration and Cooperation

Abstract

Social media has provided new tools for digitally communicating to facilitate learning
activities that promote English learning processes and overall learning experience, for the global
netizens. One can effectively impact English learning, using social media with both qualitative and
quantitative approaches. This article addresses the perspectives and its related challenges using a shared
language teaching system which is being carried out through Social Media and Web 2.0 tools. Based on
social constructivism, we argue that learning foreign languages is an individual, collective as well as a
cognitive learning process. Using social media, student's interactivity and global participation can be
enhanced by keeping them engaged in an innovative way, especially for new generations of students.
This article illustrates on the use of social media in an educational setting and means to encourage
learning by creating, sharing, and developing private, collaborative knowledge. The collaborative
learning processes incorporated in an enhanced learning environment in social media are conducive to
effective adult language learning. The research also addresses some problems related to using social
media for the process of teaching and learning. Several Web 2.0 innovations have rushed into everyday
life since 2004. The term, Web 2.0, contains a variety of different implications resulting in higher
emphasis on user-generated content, knowledge exchange, collaborative and cooperative effort, learnerto-learner interactivity, and informal and formal based learning. Web 2.0 is based on modern
formulation of online learning paradigm as opposed to conventional web-based or e-learning
paradigms.This paper is an attempt to explore Social Media and Web 2.0 as a means of Collaboration
and Co-operation, thereby leading to an enhanced and an enriched learning environment for the modern
scholar.