The use of social media for promoting vocabulary acquisition in the L2 classroom

Abstract: Social media as a tool in the classroom is not a concept one hears much about. Being that social media is still a relatively new phenomenon, this is not particularly strange. Research surrounding the subject is sparse, but there are several articles that show there being a possible place for social media in the classroom. These studies find that there is a need for educators to be properly informed and make precise decisions regarding how and why they want to use social media in the classroom. In this paper we found evidence that supports the idea that social media can be useful as a tool in the classroom; however, findings show that there are few if any moments of explicit vocabulary learning, and therefore social media should be used more as a motivational tool, resulting in implicit vocabulary acquisition. In order to get proper usage of social media, educators need to conduct their own research, thereby expanding the knowledge of social media as a tool.