The Influence of New Media Environment on Foreign Language Teaching-Taking WeChat and Weibo as Examples

張夢雪

Introduction

The popularity of new media such as WeChat and Weibo carries a profound impact on the field of foreign language education and teaching. This paper mainly discusses the positive influence and the unfavorable factors of new media in order to make full use of media to enrich the methods of foreign language teaching， improve teaching quality and try to avoid the unfavorable factors in teaching. WeChat and Weibo have the characteristics of accuracy， convenience and instant. Today， the public platform of WeChat and Weibo have developed a more saturated state in the teaching field. This article will take WeChat and Weibo as examples to analyze the impact on the new media era of the teaching field， so as to have a better guiding role in foreign language teaching.

1 Foreign Language Teaching in New Media Environment

The word “new media” has jumped into the public view， and there have been great differences in the definition of “new media” all the time. （Li Xingheng， 2016）， in his paper The Definition and Dissemination of New Media， comprehensively analyzes the definition of “ new media” from 2008 to 2015， and finally gives a definition： New media is a kind of information method which can break through the limitation of time and space by using digital and modern communication technology， and the three roles of information publisher， communicator and receiver can no longer be strictly distinguished by the way of information dissemination.

The other new media that also occupies the mainstream media status is Weibo. Weibo， as a social learning platform， has the characteristics of immediacy， interactivity， collaboration， multimodal and group （Huang Guangfang etc， 2015）. The popularization of WeChat and Weibo can make foreign language teaching keep pace with the time， and make teachers and students understand the subject dynamics first.

2 The Positive Influence of New Media on Foreign Language Learning

Through mobile new media， the resource sharing of massive information can be realized conveniently and quickly， the communication between teachers and students can be deepened， and the students' vision can be broadened.

First of all， the application of new media has penetrated into all aspects of each class. Through the use of the latest WeChat， Weibo and other places to retrieve the vocabulary， we can easily collect examples for they are related to social hot spots which can greatly arouse their students interest.

After class， teachers can easily integrate the open-teaching resources around the school via new media， and can also carry out targeted learning evaluation for students learning.

Therefore， new media can realize the foreign language learning at anywhere， and it can extend and expand the learning space， so that students can make full use of the fragments of time.

3 Unfavorable Factors of New Media For Teaching

With the explosion of network information， the fragmentation of information has become one of the remarkable characteristics of the Internet era. Through WeChat， Weibo， and other new media dissemination of information， in order to meet the needs of instant， diversified， extensive and so on， new media often show scattered， relatively independent characteristics.

Usually， when evaluating the language teaching， the concept of “knowledge systematization” will be introduced. Whether the knowledge structure of the textbook is clear or not， these are not only conducive to teachers teaching. The fragmented learning content brought by WeChat and Weibo cannot be integrated into a systematic knowledge framework， which is unfavorable to the establishment of foreign language foundation.

4 Conclusion

Teaching has always been a process of keeping pace with the times and needs to adapt to the new era and new environment. In general， the influence of new media such as WeChat and Weibo on foreign language teaching is positive， which greatly enriches teaching resources and increases the diversity of teaching methods. However， the rapid and extensive dissemination of information brings about the convenience of information sharing， but also leads to the problems of different information quality， difficult to distinguish authenticity and trace the source. Analyzing the influence of these media on foreign language teaching can avoid the negative effects brought by some new media.

Works Cited

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[2]Huang Guangfang， Cheng Zhi， Zhang Zishi. An Inquiry into the Design of Autonomous Weibo Teaching Situation [J] in a Universal Learning Environment Audio-visual Education Research ，2015（09）：70-76.

[3]Li Xingheng. The definition and communication form of new media. New Media Research ，2016（13）：7-9，16.