Social media in education and foreign language teaching. An introduction

Abstract

This article introduces the key concept of social media and illustrates its frequently discussed connection with education and language didactics. Applying connectivist and constructivist theories, the use of social media in education and didactics can be profitably approached from a variety of perspectives, as the contributions in this special issue demonstrate.

Although the interdependence between social media, education, and language didactics has been well established, its importance has increased in recent years not least due to the exponential growth in social media usage. This shifting communication landscape demands more research on the challenges and opportunities it produces for teachers in training. Both are duly addressed in this Special Issue, which explores the consequences of new modes of communication for teacher training, social media-induced transformations of the way we receive information and corresponding challenges to pedagogical and didactical change as well as new practices in language acquisition and teaching.