Facebook as a TEFL TooL: a Focus on Attitudes

Web 2. 0 has proved to be a efficacious tool in bringing people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds together. It can play a crucial role in TEFL in that it may offer innovative opportunities for sustaining and improving various online learning environments and enhancing interactivity, participation and feedback between students, their fellows and teachers. Indeed, FB might be a useful online tool for EFL learners and educators in general. In this respect, the present study hypothesizes FB could be incorporated in the ELT activities and investigates how university students and teachers look at FB and to what extent they accept the idea that it can be used as TEFL tool. The study is conducted with the participation of students and instructors from two Moroccan institutions of higher education: Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI) and Moulay Ismail University in Meknes (MIU), department of English. The study confirms that FB has positive attitudes among students, but shows that teachers are still skeptical and resist welcoming FB to the Education family unit. Academically, time spent facebooking varies from less than an hour to almost six hours per day.