KOCHI: The most preferred language of teenagers in WhatsApp is Malayalam typed in English.
This was one of the findings in a paper titled ‘Lang: WhatsApp Imprints on Teenagers’ presented at the 12th International and 48th Annual English Language Teachers’ Association of India (ELTAI) Conference here on Friday.
Four teenage WhatsApp groups were selected on the basis of differences in their frequency of participation in groups for the purpose. The chats of 21 days were analysed to understand the frequency of their chats, their preferred language, and the various language styles they use while sending messages.
More than 60 papers were presented on the second day of the three-day conference, which is organised by ELTAI in association with the department of English and centre for research at St. Teresa’s College (Autonomous), and quite a few of them looked into the influence of social media in English language learning and teaching.
Another paper, ‘Social Media and English’, observed that the influence of Internet on language had made it imperative for teachers to use learning technologies innovatively and help students communicate beyond the classroom. “The evolving challenge in teaching a language now is to figure out useful ways of incorporating social media into the teaching-learning process,” the paper said. “Teachers need to be updated with social media tools available in the digital and communication era and avail them,” said another paper titled ‘Social Media Tools in English Language Teaching’.
The paper, ‘Role of Social Media in Enriching English in India’, found that social media had “undoubtedly” helped people sharpen their English language skills, with new terms being coined and added to the existing vocabulary. Further, concepts of tagging and making vine video have empowered people to express and share more.
