Motivación y redes sociales en la enseñanza de ELE

Abstract

The study described in this paper shows how the usage of Facebook as a digital working environment in the Spanish foreign language classroom can affect the motivation of the students towards the target language. Through collaboration and interaction in the social network, learners´ motivation increases while at the same time they develop a digital identity related to the cultural values of the Hispano American society. Facebook works as a learning space where students can create and share contents representative of their personal world and express themselves in Spanish which leads to a more meaningful learning process. An empirical research was conducted and quantitative data collected to determine if the groups participating in the social networking site were more motivated and their attitudes towards the language and the language community were better at the end of the semester. Keywords: Spanish as a foreign language; Social networks; Facebook; Motivation; Attitudes.