Enriching Formal Language Learning with an Informal Social Component

This paper describes an informal component that we added to an online formal language learning environment in order to help the learners reach relevant Internet pages they can freely use to complement their learning activity. Thanks to this facility, each lesson is enriched, at run time, with a number of links automatically retrieved from social bookmarking sites. The learners also have at disposal a micro-evaluation system allowing them to share within the environment their like or dislike of the visited web sites, giving their fellow learners indirect guidance for fruitful web exploitation. Our analysis of the retrieved bookmarks for different kinds of learning contents shows that suitable links are actually retrieved by this facility. Moreover, a pilot experimentation revealed that students actually feel inclined to make use of this facility and appreciate both the proposed links and the possibility to receive advice from their peers by means of the micro-evaluation system. This suggests that the added facility actually constitutes an opportunity of informal learning suitably connected with formal one.