Digital students: the use of Twitter in a spanish foreign language

Abstract

Nowadays, Twitter is the microblogging platform and an easy tool to create short texts (tweets) and combine them with videos, images and surveys. Bearing in mind that the new generation of digital users prefer to receive information through multiple channels, and are inclined towards instantly relevant and useful learning, in this article we analyze the effectiveness of Twitter in the Spanish as a foreign language (FL) classroom. We examine how students use social networks, how they feel using them in the classroom, and its impact on the acquisition of language skills in the Spanish FL classes. According to the collected data, we conclude that despite having active digital users in our classrooms, they do not feel comfortable using their personal accounts for educational purposes; regarding language skills, the participants perceive having improved their reading and writing skills. These results do not conform to part of the reviewed literature, making us question the definition of digital natives, coined by Prensky (2001), and leaning towards the category established by White & Le Cornu (2011) of visitors and residents.