Twitter in Teaching Languages: Students' Perspectives

In the new era of digital technology, the use of microblogging networks such as Twitter became a common practice among youth learners and digital natives across language classes. In the presence of VLE across all universities, do we really need to add Twitter to language classroom? Researchers suggests that Twitter as a tool outside the classroom can be a good support for the language learning. In this study we discuss the students’ perceptions regarding the use of Twitter in an Arabic for Media classroom, and how could Twitter be used as facilitator to maximise the students’ motivation. The data of this paper is based on a questionnaire that has been given to a final year students of Arabic at the University of Westminster. The students took “Arabic for Media” as a major module on their Undergraduate Programmes. Students were asked to answer questions about their usage of and opinion on Twitter, and how they felt about the whole experience. From the answers of the students, it was concluded that Twitter can be used as effective tool and practising collaboration among learners of Arabic for specific purpose