The construction of virtual communities via Facebook and their potential in language classes: Possibilities and perspectives

Nowadays, Facebook and other Social Networks (SN) have being increasingly used in the world. The majority of students and teachers had become active members in virtual social networks (Stutzman, 2006; Tufekci, 2008). This outburst in becoming a member of groups on Facebook has highlighted the potential of such a Web Resource to encourage positive relationships among students, enhance the credibility of teachers who are now much more interested in the comprehension of the culture of their public (Garrison Kanuka, 2004), and provide constructive educational outcomes, including immediate benefits from interactions between students themselves, students and teachers, and students with native speakers coming from different spatial-temporal contexts. However, little has been written about the question of the integration of Social Networks, such as Facebook, in the process of teaching/learning of languages. Very few specialists had the capacity of answering the question of how Facebook can develop the sense of community in the classes of foreign languages, or how the use of such a social network could influence the development of socio-pragmatic awareness in learners. These two important questions will be the hard core of this paper, in which we will try to figure out how Facebook could provide the students of foreign languages with opportunities to enhance the acquisition of sociopragmatic awareness, which has become indispensable for a successful interaction between the self and the others.