| Body | Tiffany VanPelt, University of Oregon
This activity is designed to use the mobile app Instagram to allow students to document their experiences as learners by cultivating a series of photos illustrating their target language activities outside of class. Through the use of Instagram, the instructor can assess the degree of improvement in their language and cultural competence and provide additional target language practice opportunities via social media. Students' photos also serve as a launching point for in-class reviews, activities, and discussions.
Outcomes:
- Learners will be able to successfully use the Instagram application to take, edit, and tag photos without instructor intervention.
- Learners will be able to produce contextually relevant hashtags that reflect appropriate forms for their photos.
- Learners will be able successfully negotiate pragmatic exchanges that arise in course of their documenting, such as asking permission to take subjects' photos.
Resource: Account set-up instruction sheet
Procedure:
- Using the instruction sheet, learners download the application and create Instagram accounts using the instruction sheet if needed. The instructor ensures the students set their feeds to private, with photos shared only with each other and the instructor.
- The instructor then provides an overview of Instagram use, including settings, favoriting, commenting, deleting, tagging, and applying filters to photos. The instructor introduces photo etiquette and safety, i.e., asking permission to photograph people and their possessions, attention to rules regarding flash and use of recording devices, awareness of personal surroundings, etc.
- Using a sample photo, the instructor will then generate example hashtags to illustrate how they are created. The instructor will then solicit suggestions from the learners, and generate as many tags as they can. A focus will be placed on appropriate structures for different types of tags.
- Learners proceed to take 10 photos prior to each class and add 5 hashtags each.
- The instructor uses the photos and hashtags to drive review sessions, additional grammar work, and in-class discussions.
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