Social Networking: An Opportunity for Progressive Pedagogy

The present study explored Iranian EFL teachers experience on the use of social networks sites (SNSs) in the process of learning and teaching by investigating the process of social networking in the EFL classroom in order to illuminate important aspects of relationships, interactions, and experiences actually occurring in the learning and teaching context. The study design was a dialectical and deconstructive approach of critical hermeneutics as the conjunction of three theories of meaning, action, and experience. Participants were 10 female Iranian EFL teachers with more than five years of experience in using SNSs in the process of teaching aged from 26 to 44. Data were collected through observation, written reflective exercises, and repeated semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed based on three phases or moments identified by Phillips and Brown (1993) including a moment of social-historical analysis, a moment of formal analysis, and a moment of interpretation-reinterpretation where the first two moments were synthesized. The themes that emerged were categorized through the theoretical lens of hermeneutics. The results drew the attention of the researchers to the importance of the student-centered classroom, the critical awareness of power-relation and inequalities in learning and teaching context, and critical reflection on the experiences of the classroom which can be considered as defining characteristics of the progressive pedagogy focusing on the needs of students and democratic relationships between teachers and students.

Keywords:

social networking , critical hermeneutics , progressive pedagogy , Iranian EFL teachers