Engaging Turkish Learners in Digital Participatory Culture Through Social Media-Enhanced Language Instruction.

This article examines the integration of Twitter, a vernacular social media platform, into formal language instruction to engage intermediate-level learners of Turkish as a foreign language at a large American university. Using a bridging activities framework grounded in sociocultural literacy theories, the study required learners to post tweets, interact with native speakers, and reflect on their experiences, aiming to develop cultural and language awareness alongside social media literacies. Analysis of 1,011 tweets, journal entries, and curated projects revealed that learners gained insights into Turkish cultural discourses, participated in digital communities, and practiced diverse social media literacies such as play, simulation, appropriation, and networking. The findings suggest that social media-enhanced language instruction can foster digital participatory culture and multiliteracies by leveraging learners’ agency and personal interests, although challenges remain in aligning informal social media use with formal educational goals. The study highlights the potential and limitations of incorporating everyday social media platforms into second language teaching, especially for less commonly taught languages like Turkish.