Potencialidades educativas do Facebook™ na aprendizagem não-formal da língua inglesa

Abstract

Facebook has an enormous educational potential and may have a major impact on the interaction and transmission of information in groups with common interests. Based on the analysis of some community pages, previously selected, this article aims at understanding their potential underlying uses in the context of non-formal learning of the English language. After an exploratory analysis of the corpus, a qualitative approach allowed the collection and interpretation of the data, the identification of the type of resources used in the posts and the ones that generated more interaction, and the understanding of the nature of this interaction. The results suggest that the educational potential of Language Learning Communities on Facebook are under-used, working often as sites for sharing resources that appear out of context. Therefore, the interactions that take place amongst users and between them and the administrators of the pages do not reach their full potential.