New Literacies and language learning

68 thoughts on “Commenting on YouTube Videos to Learn”

1. Last month I posted a picture of my family reunion dinner on Ig and a friend from Vietnam commented Happy New Year to me and told me that they also celebrate lunar new year, which surprised me a lot. I think this is an intercultural learning process happens on social media, which informed me for the first time that Vietnamese celebrate Chinese spring festival, too.
   I think the advantages of intercultural learning through commenting on YouTube outweigh the disadvantages. We can exchange ideas form people with different cultural background, make friends, learn some colloquial and idiomatic expressions…etc. One disadvantage can be the cyber-violence. Disagreements may sometimes become personal or regional attack.
   As an English teacher, I am afraid I wont incorporate this language and intercultural learning approach in my own future classes until school or educational department can work out a method, tool or systematic curriculum to make sure students can really learn something through this approach. Because this kind of learning process is arbitrary and really various from students’ own learning styles and habits. Personally, it’s hard to control this process and set a goal to assess students’ learning outcome.

   • It’s great that sometimes we do learn something about language and cultural difference when interacting with others on social media! Every time I use Facebook or Instagram to check what’s going on, it feels like they have opened a door for eye-opening cultural and language exchanges.
     Yes, I totally agree that the cyber violence may be one of the biggest hazards when learning online. I sometimes do encounter impolite people who tend to humiliate others because of the cultural/political/religious differences.

2. Re Q3: At the moment, I probably will consider using youtube commenting as a subsidiary tool. Maybe I’ll use it to pique their interest or elicit students’ response. From my anecdotal experience, students tend to be way more motivated to complete online tasks than offline tasks, even if the two tasks are entirely the same in requirements except that one is online and the other is offline. E.g. if I ask for volunteers to write something on the blackboard, there would be no response. But when I give them ipads and show them a question (the answer would be projected on the screen, no student would not at least try, and some would start answering before I ask them to.

   However, I do wonder about the effectiveness of learning language through commenting on Youtube. I agree that It motivates students and would be a valuable asset in a teacher’s tool kit. But it’d not be the main learning activity. While Benson has shown that language learning is happening, whether it’s effective would be a more demanding yet necessary question that all teachers must ask. I am still looking forward to evidence for that.

   • Hi Samson, thank you for your informative response to some of the questions. Based on your personal classroom observation, it seems that it’s true that some relatively shy students tend to feel more confident when using online instruction tools. The same thing happened last night when we were asked to contribute some ideas on the google doc. in Special Topics. Much more students responded on the google doc. than they would do when asked to respond in the traditional classroom teaching. So, I believe this can be a positive alternative to the Q&S style of instruction. Students can be offered the opportunity to write down what they think online to boost their confidence and give them more time to think about what to write down.
     In terms of learning through commenting on YouTube, you are right that it still needs further evidence from future related studies to support the effectiveness of the learning. But perhaps, as you mentioned, this can be a subsidiary tool to assist students’ out-of-class language and intercultural learning and help them foster autonomous learning habits. Teachers can also use bridging activities in the class to help students better analyze and understand what they have encountered when socializing online on a daily basis and thus making the autonomous learning more effective.

3. It is interesting to see how Youtube has become a platform for learners to practice using the language in a more authentic and risk-free environment. In the era of information explosion, students are digital natives and spend a large percentage of their time using social media sites. While social media such as Youtube enable students to be exposed to a vast number of opportunity to use the language, the online language they are using is quite different from what teachers expect them to write in standard writing conventions. Therefore, it would be of paramount importance for teachers to tell students that there are boundaries between both informal online language as well as the written language we use every day.
   To incorporate my school’s context, I would encourage students to observe the comments of videos I selected for them, and I would like to elicit their feedback of these comments. For instance, what is the writer’s point of view? Why does the writer write like that? Is there anything special about their choice of words? By examining the comments, students gain a genre awareness as well as the skills to evaluate other texts. By observing the limitations of other’s writing, students can learn from other’s mistakes and become better writers.

   • Thank you Warren for your constructive suggestions for how to incorporate this learning approach in your future school context. It’s true that this informal online learning environment is quite different from what teachers and students are familiar with traditionally. I agree that instead of using the “bridging activity” approach, it may sound like a better choice for teachers to select some appropriate videos and comments that involve translanguaging context to elicit students feedback and stimulate their critically thinking. The example questions you gave can enable students to seek negotiation for meaning and information exchange when interacting with their peers, which is exactly how learning occurs. It would be even better if students are also required to comment and interactive with other commenters. By doing so, they can gain some first-hand experience of language and intercultural learning.

4. Yes, I often make comments on various kinds of social media. I remember once I commented on a new album of my favorite singer on twitter, some fans responded to me, saying that they felt the same feelings as I did. And then we exchanged our opinions on these songs, and shared each other with some gossip, funny videos of our idol. Through this experience, not only do I learn how other English speakers use slang and emoji, also I make some international friends (we form a small fan community after that). But one problem is that, if people cannot speak English, and there is no translation function on that platform, then usually we just ignore that person’s comment.
   As a future junior high school teacher, to a large extent I will not use it. Because nobody knows what kind of comments my students will receive when they post theirs. If it is a negative one, filled with impolite expressions, I don’t think it do good to my students.

   • Yes, I know how motivating fan communities can be and we do have some opportunities to have language and intercultural learning when we the likeminded people from all over the world. Since YouTube has provided us with abundant videos of various themes and topics, people can also form different kind of fan communities there and thus benefiting from intercultural information exchange and negotiation for meaning.
     I understand your concerns about incorporating this learning approach into your future high school context. We may not be able to ensure that everyone conforms to the online interaction norms and conventions, but may be, as teachers we can guide our students and help them to make the best use of this online learning opportunity critically.

5. One advantage is that native netizens are free to explain some questions from non-native netizens through commenting. And it is helpful that some stereotypes can be interrogated and mitigated in this way. Also people are able to share more types of sources. (eg: background music sharing) It is common to see that in mainland China, “danmuku subtitles” or “bullet comments” have gained great popularity in Bilibili. Some comments are useful, for instance, background illustration or resources checking. However, some non-senses are shown in a high frequency which influence the video users’ mood. I think I will use the approach to facilitate my teaching. It is necessary for students to build their ability to select useful and un-useful comments and their own thinking pattern.

   • Thank you for mentioning the Bilibili video website, which is one of the most popular platforms where Chinese netizens share their common interest through posting and comment on videos. To a large extent, people can have similar cultural learning experience on Bilibili the way they do on YouTube. But maybe it’s less likely for them to learn language there as most of the videos and comments are in learners’ L1. Also, non-sense comments often happen on different online video networking platforms. So, as teachers, we do need to help our students to critically evaluate the learning materials they can possibly get.

6. I usually make comments on Weibo. Most of time, the person I talk to is a Chinese, except for commenting on my favourite American film star’s posts, that time I will use English instead. I think there exists language and intercultural learning because the American film star often replies some of the comments with code-mixed words such as “Thank you 谢谢”, and also he will sometimes use a meme which shows Chinese culture. Similarly, once he laughed at the nickname which we gave to him, and then we learned that the nickname has another meaning in English.
   I think the advantage of language and intercultural learning through commenting on translanguaging YouTube videos is that the information base can be titanic, which also can be the disadvantage for the difficulties on information filtering and catching.
   If I am an English teacher, I think this approach is good to be a extra-curriculum language learning activity (optional). As teacher, I would like to recommend some good online social platforms like YouTube or Facebook, and encourage students to find some translanguaging materials they are interested in, but I won’t make it a compulsory assignment because I don’t think it is efficient enough for language learning (especially in secondary and high schools), and it will be hard to monitor.

   • Hi Charlotte, your experience of language and intercultural learning on microblog (Weibo) was quite interesting. It’s true that one of the most important benefits of learning through commenting on YouTube is the huge amount of information there to assist our learning, but this also means that teachers need to work hard to help their students to critically evaluate the values of the comments. Adopting this kind of activity in extra-curriculum activities sounds like a good idea. With professional classroom instructions and guidance on the use of YouTube comments, students can cooperate with their teachers and create more resources for learning.

7. Thank you for your sharing!

   Yes, I have had the experience of commenting on YouTube videos and actually I really enjoy the process of exchanging ideas with other watchers of the same video. For example, last week I just watched a video about Jimmy Kimmel’s Oscar Monologue. In the 9-minute monologue, he plays a lot of tricks on different actors and actresses present at the Oscar Awards. Those tricks are very interesting, but I could not understand all of them because I am not familiar with American culture. Hence, I commented to seek help. Only 7 to 8 minutes later, I received many replies about those punchlines. After reading their explanations, I really learned a lot. For instance, Kimmy said, “we don’t discriminate against people based on what countries they come from. We discriminate against them based on their age and weight.” This was actually a satire to Donald Trump’s “travel ban”. For me, commenting on YouTube videos is a way to interact with people from all over the world and by doing so, I can learn a lot about different cultures.

   When it comes to the advantages of this kind of learning, as I talked above, it can provide English learners with opportunities to interact with native speakers from whom they can learn about culture of that country as well as some native English expressions. As for the disadvantages, I think the efficiency of that kind of learning may not be very high, especially for learning English expressions. If leaners do not make notes of those expressions, they may forget them very quickly because they do not intend to learn those expressions. They just pick up them when they are doing some relaxation activities like watching a video.

   Yes, of course I will incorporate this language and intercultural learning into my future class because it can permeate plenty of language and cultural knowledge which may not be covered in the English textbooks into my students’ mind. However, in order to boost their learning efficiency, I will also ask them to make some notes about what they have learned.

   • Hi Sophia, thank you for your reply! It’s really interesting and inspiring to hear your personal experience of intercultural learning experiences through YouTube commenting, which can be regarded as another evidence of learning happening on YouTube. Sometimes cultural knowledge may be too hard for students to acquire as their teachers may not have much time to pay attention to those aspects when language learning becomes the focus. It’s through those social interactions on YouTube and other social networking platforms that learners can naturally learn something new informally and motivationally.
     You mentioned that to make the best use of commenting on YouTube to learn, students need to take notes rather than randomly read and comment. I totally agree. Teachers should help students form good learning habits both inside and outside classroom to facilitate students’ independent learning. Perhaps some “bridging activities” can also be adopted to maximize the language and intercultural learning.

8. To be honest, I have never commented in social media, for I seldom watch short videos. I know I am out, haha! However, I do think that it can lead to language and intercultural learning, maybe not that frequent. For example, it can help you better understand another culture. You can pick up some new words or phrases. However, if I am going to be an English teacher in the future, I don’t think that I will incorporate this language and intercultural learning in my class. To begin with, students in the mainland, China don’t have the access to YouTube. Besides, as young students, they will focus more on the videos than on the comment. What’s more, the chance of learning is not that high. Sometimes, there will be more oral fights than cultural communication. Considering the many disadvantages, I will not do that.

   • Hi Betty, it’s interesting to know that you have never commented on any social media. You also mentioned that you probably won’t incorporate this approach into your future class. This reminds me of the what Tour (2015) described as “digital mindset” in his study, where he found that teachers’ own technology use in their personal life can have a big impact on whether and how they may embrace new literacies in school contexts. If YouTube is non-accessible to mainland Chinese students, then maybe we can consider other alternatives like Bilibili/Microblog/other types of video sharing websites etc. Also, if teachers worry that students may be distracted when learning online at home, they can possibly assign some valuable learning materials prepared in advance to students and ask them to work in pairs or groups in the class, and provide some necessary vocabulary/grammar/genre/culture guidance whenever possible. : )

   • Hi Betty, I agree with you and I don’t think that you do not watch short videos and then you are out, maybe you prefer the longer ones,LoL. I do have the same feelings that we cannot get that much of information or knowledge we expect through commenting solely and sometimes the information from the comments are not correct either. And we still have barriers when we have to use Youtube assisting our teaching in Mainland schools.

9. Yes, I often comment on various social media. I think the commentary function is of great importance as we can express ideas or ask questions towards the bloggers and other users. Just a few days ago, I watched the trailer of Little Woman (2019), and l commented on my feelings and thoughts about the scenes and characters. Just within a few hours, I received dozens of messages. A lot of people share their opinions with me, and some of them also told me that the old version really worth watching. We commented upon others, and some of their commentary words touched me. I found it was just like alive and vivid literary lessons as I have gained a lot of knowledge and opinions to understand these literary comics better—communication and exchanging information form a flexible and meaningful circle.
   I am willing to incorporate this into my English class as an adding tool. One thing I am sure is that I would use some of the video materials and some pictures of particular comments selected from the Youtube as warming- up and leading-in, to stimulate students’ learning passion and also to let the students get familiar with the contexts we are going to learn. But I am not sure about the authentic comments part. I mean I would recommend this to my classmates and my principal to check whether we can adapt it based on the specific student’s conditions such as age and cognitive ability. And of course, there would be a lot of problems and difficulties, such as cyber violence. (If adopted, we should design some guidelines to guide students on how to comment correctly and politely without hurting others, and when receiving some abuse, how should they protect themselves.)

   • Hi Manty, it’s great to see that you have gained some positive commenting and learning experience in online social media. Indeed, especially for the younger generation, internet has been incorporated deeply and widely into our daily life, and comments and interactions can never be something simply separated from us. Through your experience, since you are sharing ideas and feelings about the literary works, it is a good example of language and intercultural learning which gave you a deeper and multi-angle understanding about the literature.

     At the same time, I really agree with you that when we put the approach into practice, it is important to establish an appropriate guideline beforehand concerning with how to use commenting and how to deal with some potential problems etc. so as to achieve the greatest benefits from this approach. It should be meaningful and helpful if we language teachers and commenting users can think the online commenting and interaction from the perspective of language and intercultural learning and also give more feedback to this approach in order to make it a much more systematic and practical educational strategy within the ever-expanding global online platform.

10. As the social media I use most frequently are mainly in China, I commented often on Weibo and Bilibili in Chinese. As for bilibili, just as Yanyue3 said about the popular phenomena of “danmuku subtitles” or “bullet comments”, I had the same experiences about writing down some feelings or just following the former subtitles to make the screen full of the consistent words as watching the videos. And of course, I will also look at the comments area. I find some netizens are really hilarious and creative poets that they will write some interesting “doggerels” related to the video which might be good for Chinese. I think I will explore further onto YouTube in the future to leave some comments.

    This just reminds me of one recently went viral uploader, Liziqi. Through positive interactions on the comments, I think her videos have brought the novel scenes of Chinese tradition to people outside of China and offer a kind of suburban peace to the audience who lives in a completely different environment. By reading comments on the first few pages, you can feel the kindness and warmth of the humanity as we’re a global family. You can also see some irrelevant words like a Russian girl cheered up for China in getting over the difficulties of the 2019-nCoV sooner. But they show the positive concerns to another country. And I believe there are more advantages through this kind of interaction. As for the disadvantages, I agree with Biyao about the cyber violence on YouTube. And I also worry about the misleading videos related to terrorism or other extreme thoughts. They are poisons seducing the teenagers into darkness.

    As an English teacher in the future, I believe I will incorporate that into my teaching. But I will carefully choose the materials that will be related to the topic of the lessons. I think it can inspire the students’ motivation in learning English and facilitate their critical thinking. Considering their proficiency, I may also adopt one activity just as Warren mentioned, pick up some comments useful for the lesson and let the students discuss them in class. Maybe it can also be an opportunity to hold a debate. I think the course of English should be a little bit different from other subjects. In spite of lots of drills, students also need the opportunity to think more and see what is happening beyond the wall. Of course, the prerequisite is that this will not influence their normal study and achieve the realistic goals of having a grade.

    • Hi, Connor, thanks for your reply. Indeed, Liziqi is so popular nowadays and I’m also attracted. Her lifestyle has stricken a chord in everyone’s heart who has been living in the modernized and urbanized society for so long. It is interesting from your observation that the positive impression on her video also brings about the comment of encouragement from a Russian commentator for us to overcome the current epidemic difficulty in China. It seems every online fragment can be thought as a channel for a foreigner to learn about a country. We can never underestimate the power of this online world for language and intercultural learning.
      What’s more, it is said language is the vehicle of one’s minds. So I really agree that English teachers can do more to make a connection between the formal classroom and the outside world. And choosing proper and interesting online comments as a provocative start should definitely be a good choice in an English class which can stimulate the motivation of students and be agreeable to realize the overall learning target. When students are eager to learn English well, it is important to expand their horizon or stimulate the critical thinking. Only in this way, can English learning be really meaningful since students are using the language to speak out their minds, not just regarding it as a subject.

11. Yeah, probably no one can escape the influence of social media in such an information age and commenting is one of the most direct ways to establish our involvement with other netizens in the huge online community. I can tell my experience with using the Tik Tok app. I followed several transnational couples on the Tik Tok, for example Chinese-Korean couples and Chinese-American couples. The reason why I follow them could be their videos and the comments below actually raise my interest in language and intercultural learning. First of all, the couple are from different countries, so the main content of their videos is their daily life confronting with cross-cultural differences. Additionally, at the end of the video, they always throw a question like “what do you think of these differences” or “do you have any cross-cultural experiences in this setting, come and share in the comment”, which really triggers a heated cross-cultural discussion. Therefore, these videos attract people from different nationalities to share their feelings about particular cultural difference in comments. My interesting experience as I once commented below a Chinese-American couple about the topic how to deal with girl’s period in your country: “hhhh, it’s popular to drink hot sugar water when Chinese girls are on their period”. Then I got lots of comments follow like foreigners’ questions on this Chinese way, our Chinese explanation of our way, and many Americans share their ways for example treating it the same as normal, taking some pills or going to the private doctor. And even some of the foreigners are willing to try it out on their next period. Through this kind of experience, I learned about the American culture and some English words in this specific context, and vice versa for other foreigners. Furthermore, it is equally a chance to have better understanding of our own culture and be more inclusive to cross-cultural differences.

    Advantages: 1. Approach to the various language and intercultural patterns much easier. 2. Develop motivation in language learning through an informal context
    Disadvantage: 1. Sometimes can easily create a stereotype, if the video is not filled with so many comments, then you tend to believe in small groups of people 2. Everyone expresses themselves freely on the internet, and there’s keyboard man. Sometimes you will be confused by mass cultural information 3. Because of the multimodality, some would be more focused on the video itself 4. Sometimes we pay more attention to the languages we familiar with, so the language learning is not so efficient.

    I want to mention that I want to be a primary school English teacher, so the English level of students would not be appropriate for commenting on public YouTube videos. The most videos, audience and comments are not comprehensible to their age. Maybe the languages in the video and comments will be a little bit confusing when they aren’t even embedded with a systematic grammar and vocabulary knowledge. However, this doesn’t mean this approach can’t be implemented in the primary school. The teacher could set up a channel and select the suitable videos according to students’ cognitive and language level. When it needs, teachers can collaborate with other international schools to make this approach more efficient for learning purpose. With the introduction of this approach, the students would be more motivated and try to search for the further understanding of other cultures through language learning. So, maybe I will try it out in this way in the future teaching.

    • haha, I also follow some couples from different countries on YouTube and IG. I am very interested in intercultural differences and their videos can give me tuns of information especially from ordinary people’s perspectives. When they talk about this issues, I also learned some expressions about the topic, just like you.

      I also agree with you that sometimes there can be stereotypes because people believe what they want to believe. It’s also a problem to source the useful information and knowledge in the video and comments. And yes, it will be more difficult for kids or some beginners.

12. I actually seldom make comments on social media, except for my Wechat moments. But last time I was skimming through comments below a YouTube video about different teaching approaches, I found some discussions about situations in different countries and it was a very practical intercultural learning to me.

    This kind of approach provides us additional interactions with people from different language contexts and we can have some experiences of cross-cultural communications. The intercultural learning gained from this is interesting too. Also, we can have our preferences when choosing topics and it is more interesting and motivated. The disadvantages

    Well I think it depends on the level of students when it comes to application. For young learners who are limited to L2 abilities and understandings, learning through commenting can be misleading to them. But for advanced learners, it is worth trying to adopt is as a tool to help them conduct research or as the activities to add some fun to the class.

    • Hi Shanice, thanks for your sharing.
      I also do not like to post comments when I am using social media LOL, but it is enjoyable to read other people’s comments which is a thought-provoking process as well.
      I agree that the approach depends on the level of students when it comes to application.
      We English teachers need to make sure that students have the ability to express their ideas before push them to communicate with people from different cultural background. Otherwise, there will be many misunderstanding or even conflict.

13. Thank you for sharing such an interesting topic.

    Even though I am a social media “addict”, I seldom comment on the Internet except for this blog haha. But every time I would glance over the top comments nearly to the end after watching the video or the post. One thing from my observation is that although there are some scintillating comments enriching my language and cultural knowledge, some others could be too subjective and even aggressive since social media is wildly accepted by the general public and most people comment from their point of view. Besides, It is not an efficient way to learn language and intercultural knowledge through commenting on translanguaging videos, especially for young netizens who are less able to tell right from wrong, given that there are many negative phenomena in internet communication, including misleading and overflowing information. However, as a potential English teacher, I could see the positive side of this creative approach. There are many high-quality videos and comments we can learn from. Therefore, I should carefully think about how to incorporate this creative approach in my future classes. Being a “gatekeeper” and introducing thee filtered information into classes could be a feasible way.

    • Hello, Ran. Thanks for your response. I agree with you that before taking this approach into the formal language learning classroom, we English teachers should do some preparations or filter some unsuitable comments. While the internet is so accessible nowadays for everyone, it might be with the same importance to help the students to grow critical thinking or the ability of choosing right information by themselves since there are more chance for them to use the internet and see the comments outside the classroom.

14. Speaking frankly, I seldom comment on social meida since for most of time I just read the comments left by others, and if I agree with them or share the same feeling with them, I will click a “like”, if not, I will have my own thought without leaving a comment.
    From my personal experience, I think learning language by commenting on social medium could bu useful on the condition that meaningful topics are introduced and students are guided to distinguish the useful information from the misleading one. So that teachers’ assistance in this process is necessary. Besides, I do think that what matters when ask students to engage in the online community is that to encourage students develop their own ideas–they can refer to others opinions, but shouldn’t be misleaded or purely rely on others to develop their thinking.
    If I were a teacher, maybe I would use this as an optional teaching method, since for EFL learners this way of learning is quite novel and could motivates them to get more L2 input and produce output as well, though it entails a great deal of teachers’ guidance and monitoring.

    • Hi, Chang, thanks for your post. I totally agree with you that teachers should help students to develop their own thoughts rather than relying on others or being misled by others. Using this new way in language teaching should be an aid both for students and teachers to share more inspiring and interesting ideas from others, but it should definitely not be the end of our own creativity and critical thinking, which, on the contrary, should be needed even more in this virtual commenting and learning community.

15. Thanks for sharing!

    When I comment in social media I usually leave comment under my friend’s post or the post that I am interested in. I never comment on the posts that I disagree because there are lots of irrational argues on the internet, but I enjoy reading comments to get different opinions from netizens. In terms of language and intercultural learning, I think I learn more intercultural related knowledge from the comments. I can always see broken English in the comment which is not good as a language input.

    From my observation and experience, the biggest advantage of it is that students can reach to and practice their language in a convenient environment, especially for shy students and they receive first-hand feedback on their comments. Cybercrime and cyber bullying are the disadvantages that we should be aware of.

    As a future English teacher, I would love to try to incorporate this approach in my teaching to see whether it is effective. It may initiate students’ motivation but the materials should be carefully selected.

    • oh, I actually sometimes also comment on people if I disagree with them can try to find out their logical mistake and refute haha. Sometimes it can trigger more prolonged exchanges. It seems that you focus more on cyber violence. Yes it’s an unavoidable negative aspect in social media, and it also blocks language learning on the Internet somehow when you need to pay extra attention to deal with it.

16. Thanks for sharing this interesting topic. Actually I’m an enthusiastic social-meida user like most of my peers, and I love leaving comments on videos and posts. Since I’m a big music lover, most of my comments can be found beneath music videos, live concerts videos or singers’ posts etc. Mariah Carey is my favorite singer, and she’s an active instagram user too, I enjoy skimming through the comments her fans–aka “lambs” leave under each of her post, most of which are in English, but there’re also Chinese, Japanese comments etc. I believe that can be counted as a kind of language and interculturla learning in a way.
    If I become an English teacher in the future, I’ll try to incorporate this language and intercultural learning approach in my classes, but to which extent will I do it depends on the age and competence of English of my students. For more advanced learners like high schoolers, I can share music videos of Mariah Carey with them( with subtitles), and can even invite them to provide their own translation of lyrics of the songs in order to improve their translating abilities. For beginners or intermediate students, I will devise activities that are less challenging which also involve intercultural learning.

    • Hi Tina, thanks for sharing your ideas, it is great that we now have the access to the Internet which ensured a much larger information database for us. We can discuss with people from other area of the world, and when we are discussing, we are actually training our skills of intercultural communication, expressing ideas, and negotiating for meanings.
      As an English teacher, it is important for us to save students from the boring drills and quiz. The digital tools are great methods to ensure an attractive and interesting class.

17. I usually comment in social media when it somes to what I’m interested in. I’ve been following a blogger on weibo who is a Japanese and used to teach Japanese in China. He often shares something interesting about Japanese, and once he talked about how to say “I” in Japanese. He introduced several ways addressing “I” by female and male, which sounded very complex to a Chinese speaker. Nevertheless, it is much fun because Japanese addressing does reflect the status of the two sexes and their changes through years. I asked questions mainly about why they use different ways of “I” in Japanese and whether it’s true about the blogger said, and some netizens shared with me their own experience in Japan. It’s quite a fascinating way to learn a language and its culture because it allows me to get in touch with the authentic context and usage.
    Many netizens come to contribute their own ideas in the comment area below a video, which can be seen as an advantage as well as a disadvantage. On one hand, a viewer can get his/her question answered by many people in a relatively short time. There are more than one answer so that the knowledge of the question-raiser gets broadened. On the other hand, there are too many opinions, among which fake news and stereotypes maybe involved. That requires the viewer to be critical about the comments he/she receives.
    Of course I will. I always hold the belief that language is for interaction and is a tool to gain more knowledge about the world. As globalisation develops, people and communities are getting more closely connected, and it’s more difficult for us to escape from the trend. Learning how to interact with people from different cultral backgrounds are big issues. Language, especially English as a useful Lingua Franca, is an effective tool to acquire another culture. What’s more, English is a language involving its own culture, so learners deserve to learn the culture as well.

    • Hi Olivia, it’s awesome that you have much language and intercultural learning experience on social media and that you’re willing to incorporate this method into your future teaching! 🙂 I totally agree with you that social media has enabled learners to acquire knowledge through a wide range of laid-back interaction with people from all over the world. It’s true that netizens need to be critical when viewing and commenting on social media like YouTube so as to maximize their potential language and intercultural learning. If teachers are being accustomed to new literacies, it’s also their responsibility to raise students’ critical awareness when using the social media as a source of information exchange.

    • Hi, Olivia.
      So from your reply, i have to say , as long as we use those online platforms properly, whether students or language teachers can get something meaningful through such rich resources. The main point is how to select suitable content online, since there occurs more and more channels with vulgar contents or cyber-bullying， that may cause negative effect on netizens.

18. Before I seldom commented on videos and I did not pay attention to comments on videos as well. So I am afraid I didn’t have any similar experiences. But now I realize comments on social media can be a really interesting and useful medium to conduct language and intercultural learning. So I will try to make some comments later and observe this sort of learning more closely to experience the novel way of learning myself.
    I think the advantages outweigh disadvantages as people are enabled to learn in a more interesting way and gain cultural knowledge in such a convenient way. The learning happens in casual and relaxing talks and people don’t need to bother to search answers by themselves. As for the disadvantages, I think some answers provided by other viewers can be wrong or misleading sometimes, which requires people to be discerning to some extent.
    As an English teacher, I think I will encourage students to post comments on videos and observe these comments after class. But I won’t integrate them into normal classes because I think it’s hard for me to tell if they are really studying or just playing some online games. Anyway, I think this method is really thought-provoking and probably we can integrate it into English curriculum someday when much more detailed and systematic methodology emerge.

    • Hi Coco, although you haven’ got any experience of commenting to learn on social media, it’s never too late to learn! Like what we are exactly doing now here, information exchange and meaning negotiation have enabled us to get some thought-provoking ideas from other netizens and we can even co-construct an online community where likeminded people can make a contribution to whatever they are interfered in and familiar with. It’s important for teachers to teach and encourage our students to evaluate the information they get online critically. In terms of the incorporating the learning/teaching method into English curriculum, I understand that in current Chinese context, it will be hard to make a coherent new literacy English curriculum, but probably teachers can spend one class per month as trial lessons to help students find out the assets of learning from the virtual community gradually. If you worry that students may use the Internet for unintended purposes, you may control what they can get access to in your own class by providing some selected materials for them to learn.

19. I seldom commented in social media, but I did get some learning from others’ comments. I really enjoyed watching Yoora Jung’s video, who is an American born Korean. One of her videos was about racism that she had suffered in America. There were many people also shared their experiences and their opinions. Through viewing those comments, I think I got some intercultural learning about racism and I also met some new words and got to know some ways of expressions in Internet. Social media really shorten the distance and people around the world can easily discuss things with others.
    If I am an English teacher, I do not think I will use this approach in the future classes. I suppose my students would be middle school students. This approach might not be suitable for them. I believe if I ask my students to comment on the assigned videos, some of them might take it as an excuse to surf the Internet for other purposes like playing computer games, rather than write comments or view others’ comments carefully. I think it would be better to lead them to have discussions about certain video in the classroom for middle school students (if it is one of the tasks in my teaching process). In addition, I will also encourage them to try to comment on social media in their spare time. It is a good way for them to get some extra knowledge and communicate with people around the world.

    • Hi Eva, thanks for your sharing.
      I do agree that it is hard to apply in the middle school class, especially in the mainland of China. It may not be applicable in some international schools. Commenting can be arranged as an after class activity instead of in class.
      But there are also some points that are helpful in designing an English class, such as the movie dubbing and other games. The aim of introducing the commenting on videos is to learn how to negotiate for meaning and express ideas properly.

20. I used to be an English teacher and I found that students are tired of endless mechanical drills and exercise books after class. After reading this post, I do believe language and intercultural learning approach may get students motivated and refreshed. For one thing, learning English is not only about the language itself but the cultures behind it. Intercultural learning enables students to increase international and cross-cultural tolerance and understanding. In addition, all the materials teachers employ are authentic. Therefore, it is high time that teachers introduced the new teaching approach. For another, at present a vast majority of students cannot live without digital equipment and they are quite enthusiastic about it. When delivering the lesson, if we can combine what students like and our teaching content and goal together, why not give it a go? For example, if the objective of the lesson is giving opinions of something like a piece of news, a short video clip can be prepared by the teacher in advance and then ask the students to comment on it using the target sentence structures as a kind of assignment after class.

    • Hi Catherine,
      I strongly agree with your idea that learning English is not only about the language itself but the cultures behind it. An important fact is that only when we know the culture of the target language then we can really acquire it.
      The comment section in the facebook is a platform for us to communicate with people from different cultural background. Besides, digital tools are essential in multimodal course design which will evoke the interest of the students to learning English.

    • Hello, Catherine, thanks for your post. Indeed, it is a strong trend nowadays to use digital devices in English classes and it is always being criticized that English teaching materials are out of date or unauthentic. Learning language and intercultural knowledge through commenting can do better in this aspect since it create a close connection between the formal class and the outer world. I also found that when some students said that their English is not good, it is not because of lack of words or grammatical structures in there mind, the lack of background information should be a stronger restriction. So, if they can keep up with the latest information they are interested in, and teachers give them a hand to link expressions and words they have had, students can be more confident and learn English much better.

21. Honestly, I seldom left comments on social media unless I got confused about what’s being posted but I really enjoy browsing those interesting and insightful reviews. I still remember it was in last month, I watched a video on YouTube about a French girl showing how to make a ‘galette des rois’, which is a kind of pastry made by French people to celebrate the Epiphany. Actually, when I was in college, our teacher has introduced this pastry and the custom before, but it was completely different from that in the video. So I asked in the comment section why the cake was sprinkled with so many crystallized fruits and sugar instead of making with almonds and cream. I soon got a lot of responses. Those netizens told me that the recipe varies from region to region and many young people don’t follow the traditional practice but make it according to their own preferences. Beyond that, I also learned more about the colorful events of the Epiphany in Italy from other’s comments. This is the magic of the comment section on social media, which connects netizens all around the world and provides a good chance for us to communicate with people from diverse cultural and social backgrounds.

    Despite those advantages of learning through commenting on YouTube, there is a quite obvious loophole in the argument that it serves on negative impact. One of the possible disadvantages can be misleading opinions. It’s hard to regulate everything on the Internet and judge the netizens in such a fictitious world. In addition, I didn’t learn much useful language skills from the comments, as many of them are informal internet phrases.

    As an English teacher, I will still incorporate this learning approach in our future classes without compromising the fixed teaching schedule. Due to the above drawbacks, I may not allow students to view the videos and comment on YouTube on their own. Not all the videos on YouTube are of learning value, so it is quite time-consuming for learners to find something useful. For young learners, especially for those without self-discipline, they may be easily distracted and much less able to distinguish important information. It might be an applicable way to choose a good video before class by the teacher and spend part of the lecture discussing among the learners.

    • Hi, Yvaine, thanks for your post. It is true that it is still difficult to find sufficient evidence to show that effective language and intercultural learning have been realized through this method, just like what you have experienced. so maybe at present, we can use this approach as a complementary part to the traditional formal class. And I also agree that teachers should pay attention to the choice of suitable materials from the online comments since it seems everyone has the right to make comments through online communities. Even though these comments can be existing, it does not mean all of them are helpful to the learning target of our language class.

22. Actually, I seldom regard such kind of social media platform comments as a usual language learning way. Since there allows more freedom than I could imagine. More informal than what language we really need to learn and master.

    I have to say to skimming or scanning through these comments can widen my horizon to a large extent. Some details of foreign culture or authentic oral usage of that language can be learned since those who comment on the websites are on behalf of their own nations respectively. Their habits of expressing themselves in daily life can be easily recognized through the lines of comments.

    So if my aim is just for recreation, such kind of language can be absorbed and utilized. Seriously, we need a professional online platform to acquire our second language.

    If i’m an English teacher, I don’t think that’s quite good to use such a recreational online platform in my class. Students will be easily addicted to browsing the videos instead of finding information from the lines of comments. So maybe there can be a suitable substitute for Youtube. I may choose TED, a web that contains a number of speeches (with sufficient views about different topics, entertainment, nature, humanities, sociology.etc). To select relaxing speeches is essential for catching my students’ attention, so this is an important step.

23. Since the Internet comes to almost every household, and I did make some comments on social media and benefit from intercultural and language learning. However, the technical problem is that mainlanders must set up VPN to access to YouTube, and it means that I won’t check out others’ replies from time to time. Consequently, initiation and response may not take place uninterruptedly and timely.

    The main advantage of commenting on translanguaging video is to demonstrate my understanding of the content of the video. In addition, my comments would probably elicit follow-up comments by other viewers, and the comments would go on and on. Such process resembles to brainstorming and debate, which allows me to capitalize my previous language knowledge and to receive authentic language use in case of comments made by native speakers. In terms of disadvantage of such learning approach is failure of keep topics on the track. As I commented on one video, as a result, replies would flood in. However, as the comments went on, what we talked about gradually had nothing to do with the topic.

    I afraid not. The whole school system in mainland is still exam-driven, so the administration of such approach would be unrealistic and rejected. At best, for students taking Gaokao, this approach only works as an out-of-class activity. Another reason is that this approach requires students to be highly self-disciplined and self-motivated, so if applicable, I will pilot this approach in a classroom of high intermediate and advanced level students.

    • Hi, yilihua, thanks for your post. I will also show the concern about how to keep a balance between this new approach and the final target in Gaokao. I used to ask my students one question. If there are commonly two types of English teachers, which one do they prefer? One is teachers with more tendency to teach them how to use language in real world with a more flexible way, for example, bringing some interesting videos or materials into class. Another is teachers who keep asking them to do Gaokao-targeted drills. Most of them said, in grade one, they like the former one, because they are not under so great pressure at that time, and when they are in a higher grade, they prefer the latter. So I suggest that, if you are facing the same attitude from your students, you can use this approach more in the lower grade class and less in the higher one.

24. I only comment my friends’ sharing and I always read comments by various people.
    The advantage has something to do with relaxation. Students have access to language and intercultural input in a relaxing atmosphere, which means they would be more likely to be concentrated on.
    I would incorporate this approach in my teaching. It can be a way to initiate students’ motivation.

    • Hi Brenda, thanks for sharing. I also think it is a way to evoke student’s interest and motivate them to learn English. Instead of introducing boring drills and questions, digital tool can be a way to make English classroom funnier.
      I prefer to make comment on Instagram and Facebook which are platforms for me to communicate with people from different cultural background. It is a enjoyable way to exchange information and practice your English skills, you should try it once.

25. In fact, I rarely comment on social media. This is probably because I use Weibo most often, and I sometimes find that netizens wrangle with each other in the comment areas, which may even turn into personal attacks. But this may be an extreme situation, and most of the time people can communicate and interact well. Also, I think it’s normal to have different values and opinions.

    For language and cross-cultural learning through YouTube, the advantages may mainly be the strong learning motivation and plural horizen it can bring. Learners could watch a variety of videos in different fields and make practical comments on them. This process is quite interesting compared to some of the traditional learning methods, and I do find that a lot of people like to use the Internet and watch videos. This kind of approach can be accepted very easily by most learners. Meanwhile, by commenting on the videos, there can be more opportunities to exchange ideas with people from all over the world and with different cultural backgrounds. However, some negative things still exist. For example, when netizens can’t agree, it might lead to misunderstandings, disputes and even worse results. So I think it can be useful for us to focus more on knowledge and communication and filter out invalid or harmful information.

    I am willing to incorporate this approach in the future, but it can also depend on different groups of students I may teach and their needs. For younger or more sensitive students, I may be worried that they might be misled or feel hurt because of some comments; for some mature students and those who may have strong desire, this approach can be very effective and meaningful.

    • For popular social media there might be the problem of verbal violence. I also agree with you that different people can have different opinions. Actually it’s like in real life, when people have different opinions, they may argue. But maybe because it’s online, people feel more free to speak out, and therefore cause misunderstandings, disputes sometimes. But I think it also at the same time facilitates negotiation for meaning, and further learning.

26. It really reminds me of the group project of the course Language in Its Social Context last semester, which was about collecting and analyzing comments on Hong Kong English on You Tube. Indeed, commenting on social media or reading the comments enables us to learn from others’ new perspectives and boost our confidence in intercultural idea exchanging. e.g. Through the YouTube Videos, I’ve learned the features of the pronunciation of HK English and I have a better understanding of code-mixing and code-switching phenomenon in HK. However, comments are always with lots of bias and regional discrimination, which is actually the opposite of the ultimate goal of intercultural learning.

    Personally, it’s very essential to help future students develop critical thinking skill and the ability to discriminate what is right and wrong in face of this challenges in intercultural learning on the internet. For example, I will encourage them to think in others’ position before they post comments and be careful of the word choice, the tone, polite expressions and so on.

    • Yes Stefanie I also did the same project and learned a lot about HKE’s features. I found it time consuming to sort out different categories of comments about language feathers, code-switching patterns etc. Sometimes I was also distracted by something easily when I looked at comments. It helps to develop students’ ability to concentrate, and like you said, critical thinking skills and moral consciousness.

27. Actually, whenever I browse through some posts on Instagram or FaceBook, I find that it really broadens my horizons, through which, I get to know a great variety of different lifestyles all around the world, and embrace different values and opinions. It does facilitate the intercultural learning in an authentic social media context.
    However, if I am a teacher, I may not use it in my future class. That’s because students lack critical thinking, which causes they cannot distinguish rightness and wrongness so that they may be misled. Some may say so why not develop their critical thinking through this approach. The fact is that the process of improvement of critical thinking takes a lot of time and efforts, but class time is really limited. So what teachers should do is to find a more reliable way to improve students’ critical thinking instead of this one which still has no Education system support such as a specific method.

    • Hi Jiaxin, I also had same experience as you had before. Especially when it comes to things related to homosexuality and transgender, the social media helped me to know more about that group of people and made me show empathy about them. It was two years ago when I was using the Instagram and then I saw people wrote LOVE IS LOVE in their caption, it really broadened my horizon.
      It is true that there are some harmful information in the social media, and what we need to do is to train students to think critical. Maybe we can select some reliable resources to share with them instead of let them select?

28. I comment on social media a lot, but mostly on Chinese social media. But I can still have language and interculture learning through the posts of the blogger (in language or entertainment fields) .

    Commenting on translanguaging Youtube vedios can give us opportunity to communicate with native speakers and learn from the process,not very systematical though :p

    Incorporating this language and intercultural learning approach in my classes will definitely be fun for the students and motivate them to learn. I will consider embody this approach properly.

    • Hi Queenie, it is great to know that there are still intercultural learning happened in the Chinese social media since I always ignored this point. Can you share more about your previous experience on commenting in Chinese social media?

29. I seldom make comments on the social media whose members are mostly strangers to me. Because almost every time I read comments I could find the some really nasty words so I don’t want to be the target of language violence.
    Frankly speaking, I am not so positive about the effect of language acquisition through commenting on translanguaging YouTube videos unless the learning process involves at least one native speaker of that language. Otherwise, the accuracy of the comments can hardly be guaranteed.
    Therefore, as an English teacher, I probably would not incorporate this language and intercultural learning approach in my future classes, but I may use it as a way after class to promote students’ interest in learning English. I think the eager to communicate with English-speaking people could help enhance students’ learning motivation.

    • Hi Christine, thanks for your sharing.
      It is true that there are some impolite comments on social media especially when it comes to entertainment and social issues. Maybe topics related to English learning and cultural exchange have more polite comments?
      I think it is also important to us to teach students how to make comments appropriately, in order to avoid language violence.
      I agree with that it can be an after class activity instead of a in class activity. During class, other methods can be applied to assist the teaching process and make the class more attractive.

30. When presenting different comments of the video, we can experience different views of people. Their opinions might differ because of their various cultural background. For example, a college student from switzerland might not understand how difficult it is for Chinese students to attend prestigious universities. Therefore, on a platform with different opinions, students can develop their critical thinking skills. I would suggest that teachers provide more chance for students to share their opinions on a discussion forum after class with users from other countries.

    • Hi Key, thanks for sharing.
      I do prefer your example of Chinese students get into prestigious universities.
      The social media’s comment function provides us with an opportunity to discuss and communicate with people from different background so we get to know more about the world.
      Besides, before introducing the approach into your classroom, I’d suggest you train their critical thinking abilities at first, so they will not be misled by some false information

31. Thank you for the sharing and this is a very resourceful and interesting post I think. I do comment a lot on the social media when I encounter some topics or discussion that I’m really interested in, since there are so many social platforms and apps designed for both local and international users. But to be honest, I think you cannot get too much intercultural learning unless you’ve got the VPN on your computer or mobiles. And when I use YouTube, I pay less attention to the comments below than the videos, so I cannot think about any intercultural learning experiences on YouTube at the moment.
    Through commenting on the YouTube videos, there will be clarification and explanations on cultural elements, politics, historic events, which is good when you can learn something you don’t know before. But I will not incorporate this in my future class because I have to filter all the comments before I can show my students and they may pay too much attention on the videos instead of the intention of using comments to learn something.

    • Hi Mira, I do agree that we need VPN to get more exposure on intercultural experience LOL. When I am using Instagram, I can get to know the latest fashion trend and the ideas produced by KOL. But Queenie seems to have some experience about gaining intercultural learning in Chinese social media, so we might need to discuss this with her.
      It is true that it will take time to find a proper comment, but it is worthwhile to make students aware of the importance of sharing and commenting.

32. Yes I have commented for bloggers on Youtube, and I would say I have learned something from other comments. Especially when I want to express my affection towards one Youtuber, I would check how other viewers use the language for appreciation first, because I want to make sure that my way of using English is acceptable. So I have definitely learned some new expressions from other comments.

    I think the advantage of such behavior is very obvious, because the learning takes place so naturally that people just pick up the new knowledge and apply what they learn in their own commenting instantly. So it is indeed a very productive way of learning.

    In the future, I might actually consider using this approach in my English classes. If there are suitable topics and comments, I would like to share them with my students. And it will trigger the interest and curiosity of my students for sure. If the technological trend is unstoppable, I might just as well find a way to embrace it.

    • Hi Aria, it’s awesome that you have learned something authentic from a connected online community. Yes, since the technological trend is unstoppable now and in the future, teachers definitely need to be well-equipped with new literacies so as to maximize the effectiveness of learning and teaching.

33. To be honest, I don’t like to leave a comment in social media, usually I just hit the like button to express my support. But I do have language and intercultural learning through social media, such as YouTube, Instagram and Facebook because I follow a lot of foreign bloggers. Sometimes I can learn some useful expressions in English from their post.

    In my opinion, commenting on translanguaging YouTube videos can help us practice our writing skills, and we can also communicate with many bloggers, which may help us gain a better understanding of the language and culture. However, sometimes we may feel confused because there are different voices and opinions on the Internet, we need to identify which are correct and useful.

    As for me, I think it is a good way to develop students’ interest and build up their self-learning ability, so I will probably try this learning approach in my future classes.

    • I know there are many others who also like to only hit the “like” button when browsing the social network websites. Even so, they may still benefit a lot from the multilinear, multicultural and multi-linguistic community where authentic dialogues happen frequently. When it comes to dealing with the confusing information on the Internet, what we need and what we students need is the ability to critically tell right from wrong, rather than accepting everything blindly.

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