Teaching Ideas 2 (Instagram as Educational Platform)

           Experts mention about several activities that can be done in using instagram for language teaching. According to Spencer (2012), there are different activities that teachers can use to implement instagram in their classes; utilizing digital storytelling, practicing grammar on photo captions, doing photojournalism, creating photo prompts for themselves, finding metaphors within chosen photos, creating photo blogs, finding and documenting context within photos, doing an ethnographic study, sharing art, and exercising creative and artistic expression through taking their own pictures. In line with this, Bell (2013) also mentions activities to use instagram in language learning. The activities involve having students on field trips, having students create photo stories and essays based on curriculum expectations, and having the entire class or school participate on instagram by using one universal “hashtag” to share their work with others.  

             Firstly, before using instagram into classroom activities, teachers are encouraged to create a teacher account. It is a separate account to use exclusively for interacting with students. Teachers also need to consider about user name used in the instagram. Teachers should choose the username professional, simple, and familiar to the students. A handle like @MrBOBCLASSROOM communicates the educational nature of the page and is easy for students to find. It is also good idea for teachers to make their account private (for students only as followers and to discourage unrelated followers). From the teacher instagram account, it can also share useful materials in learning English. Teachers can post everything that can guide students to learn language effectively. Teachers can also share sources and knowledge from other instagram. There are many different people post free EFL resources that can help teachers. Good examples include @activateyourenglish, @fromthepond, and @corkenglishteacher.

              After creating an account, teachers may go to develop certain activities that can be done through this platform. Here are some lists of activities that can promote students ability in learning English in four major skills. 

1. Speaking activities
              Speaking English fluently is still one of problems face by the students. Lack of motivation and interest make them passive in the classroom. Beside that they are also hard to describe something which is not really familiar for them. By using instagram, teacher can promote activities to develop and increase their motivation to speak English better. Here are some activities which can be adapted by teacher in the classroom

2. Reading activities
a. Share reading recommendation
            There are lot of activities which can be done by teachers and students in sharing reading books. Teachers can invite students to snap photos of their favorite books and write a brief 1-5 sentences review in the caption. They will be excited to have ‘their’ photo picked and shared, and it will encourage them to think outside the box for each subject. The other students are asked to comment and give their opinion from their friend’s post. This activity leads to a broad discussion in reviewing a book. From this activity, teachers can have a visual library of all the books that the classroom has read. In other side, teachers can also encourage students to make ‘book trailers’. This activity was proposed by Ferlazzo (2011). It involves an activity to record 15-second long persuasive book trailers video. The content of video consists of title and author of the book, a drawing of an illustration representing what the book is about, along with one sentence that students would say as a summary, favorite quote from their book, and how many ‘stars’ the students would give to the book. This activity leads students to have fun by choosing specific book that they like.
3. Writing activities
a. Caption it!               One of the students’ problems in writing is the difficulty in discovering the idea. Instagram can be used an inspiration fairy that can serve as prompt for students’ writing. Teachers can post an interesting photo and ask students to write a descriptive caption in the comments. The photo can help students in giving ideas about what to write. It will be challenging by asking students to write their caption using specific sentence types, different parts of speech, clauses, prepositional phrase, and their current vocabulary words. Finally, the teachers can give reward for the best caption wins a prize!
b. Photo inspiration
        Teacher can share interesting photo in her account. While posting the picture, teacher encourages students by giving questions related to the picture. Students are assigned to comment and give their opinion about this picture. Question students about the photo are useful as a prompt for a creative writing task. Students are free to give their ideas from what they see in the photos. From this activity, teacher can know the way students develop ideas based on the picture given. In other side, teacher can ask students to share series of picture. Students are assigned to write stories based on the picture by using language structure that had been  covered in class. This activity will make student chance to practice their writing skill. Students are afforded the chance to practice spelling, grammar, and sentence structure, and are likely to be more careful about their writing if they know the whole world can see (Mette:2009).

4. Listening activity
a. Listening the natives
                 Teachers can post a video of English speakers. The video can be a song, a conversation, a fragment of the film, and English quotation. Students are guided directly to watch and listen to the video. Afterwards, they have to answer teachers question related to the content of video. From the activities above, it can be seen that instagram is a useful tool to be used in teaching language. It has many advantages in some ways. First, it can help to increase communication skills and provide a 'back door' for shy learners. While many students struggle with speaking in front of their classmates, they may feel more comfortable 'speaking' on instagram. Second, instagram relies on the written word, making it an excellent means of improving writing skills. Third, instagram encourage collaboration and peer feedback among students. Fourth, Instagram promotes interpersonal skills among students. With this tool, teachers can engage the students in classroom activities that use interpersonal skills to apprehend the feelings and mood of fellow students. Finally, this online tool invites teachers and students to a single platform where they can engage in various fun activities and engagements.

REFERENCESAli, Sebah Al. “Embracing the selfie craze: exploring the possible use of instagram as a
langugae mlearning tool.” Issues and Trends in Educational Technology 2(2014):
1-16.Bell, M. A.”Picture this! Using Instagram with students.” Internet@Schools 23.4 (2013):
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Boyd, D. It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. London, UK: Yale
University Press, 2014.