Social media in L2 education: exploring on-line collaborative writing in EFL settings

Abstract

This paper presents a classroom experience regarding the use of wikis in L2 collaborative writing settings. Framed in the current post-positivist educational climate in higher education, the adoption of wikis as a Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) platform complements and enriches the classroom-based interaction of L2 learners. While developing solid L2 writing and self-expression skills, wikis may be said to foster other related core abilities – reading and comprehension, critical thinking, exegetic skills, integration of culture-specific elements in foreign language learning, and use of new technologies, etc. In the process of drafting culture-bound texts, the co-creating students become aware of the weight of cultural elements in their texts in an asynchronous, cross-cultural communication process, and they are able to bridge the cultural divide not only through non-formal, peer-to-peer learning, but also through empowered cross-cultural understanding in a truly emancipating English as a Foreign Language (EFL) setting.