Twitter in the teaching methods course: Foreign language graduate teaching assistants’ perspectives

Abstract

This article reports on the experimental implementation of Twitter in a foreign language teaching methods course. The goal of incorporating social networking into the course was to promote future teachers’ understanding of the collaborative nature of learning and the teaching profession. Twitter contributed to a sense of community, lowered students’ anxiety, promoted engagement and facilitated more in-depth discussions in the classroom. However, the discussions tended to remain an artificial academic exercise and the full collaborative potential of Twitter was not achieved because of the implementation methods. Based on the experience in this course, it was concluded that Twitter can be best used for teachers’ professional development to assist in the formation of their own teaching resource community, practicing collaboration and making connections on a global and local level, while building their identities as teachers.