The Utilization of Twitter for Improving the Writing of Non-native Speakers of Arabic

Abstract

The use of Twitter as an auxiliary tool for language teaching and learning has recently caught the attention of many researchers. Many studies revealed that Twitter has the potential to facilitate students' improvement in writing. Twitter can help second language (L2) writers and foreign language (FL) writers, including non-native speakers of Arabic (NNSA). The current qualitative case study intends to investigate the utilization of Twitter in improving nonnative Arabic speakers' written production. The participants in the study were 34 non-Arabic speakers who represented different nationalities (N= 8). Data were collected from the students' actual participation in the Arabic Hashtag program designed for this purpose (#I_Learn_Arabic) and from interviews with students. All the tweets in the Hashtag were qualitatively analyzed. The results show that the use of Twitter has generated different types of writing that benefit the students' learning. Thus, the study offers insights into classroom teaching and the integration of social medial into writing classes.