6 Ways to Use Facebook for Teaching EFL

So you’ve taken the plunge and decided you might be open to using Facebook to help with your teaching. Here are 6 basic features of Facebook groups and some ideas on how to use them to help you get started:

1. Events  

Use the ‘events’ feature to remind students about upcoming tests, deadlines and, of course, events! Students receive a reminder via their Facebook which they can check at any time.  This saves constant verbal reminders in class and means students can double-check any information even if they are absent. The ‘event’ could even be something as simple as a homework assignment or a Facebook task like the ones below.

2. Wall Posts

Wall posts are a brilliant way of encouraging informal communication between students. The teacher can use it for quick reminders to students about tomorrow’s lesson aims, or the students can be encouraged to post a whole range of interesting things.  For example, their task could be to post an interesting idiom or quote in English which they particularly liked.  Their peers could then comment on each other’s wall posts with comments and opinions about the post. Wall posts can be adapted to suit the needs of any level of learner.

3. Upload Photos/Videos 

Similar to wall posts, this function allows students to upload pictures and videos from all corners of the web to share and discuss with their peers. Pictures can be used for anything from caption competitions to the basis of creative writing tasks such as postcards, advertisements, stories and so on.  Meanwhile videos could feature: movie clips; the use of different accents; pronunciation of difficult words; examples of formal vs informal speech… Again the list goes on. The posts have enough scope to be either a communication task themselves or simply the basis for a larger task.

4. Group Chat 

Members of the group can use group chat to contact the rest of the group.  They can either chat in real time or rejoin the conversation at a more convenient time.  This encourages collaborative learning and should help increase student motivation.  It also gives you the opportunity to explore the sort of informal language we would usually expect in ‘chat’ scenarios.

5. Ask Question

This function is a great way to engage students in a new topic. Members can use this feature to create polls for their peers to take part in.  The results can be predicted, analysed and discussed, creating opportunities to use a wide range of different language features or become the basis of a group project.  Brilliant for teaching business English.

6. Create Document 

This feature allows you to create a shared document within the group that every member can access and collaboratively edit and develop.  This encourages group work as well as peer to peer interaction and feedback.

For more information on how to set up a Facebook group for your class, check out my other Facebook blog post.