Using Social Media to Improve Your English

Do you have a smartphone?  Do you enjoy using social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter?  Have you ever thought about using social media tools to practice and improve your English skills?  This article will give you some tips for using the power of social media to connect yourself to a lot of opportunities to practice your English.

First, you’ll need to know some social media vocabulary:

Feed– noun- the place where you can see new information.

Use it in a sentence:

 “I love seeing your Instagram photos in my feed.  You’re a great photographer!”

“Everyone on my Twitter feed is talking about  the presidential election.”

“My Facebook feed is full of April Fool’s jokes from my friends today! ”

Hashtag– noun and verb- a word or phrase used to put posts into categories so that they can easily be searched by others. Users simply put the pound/hash sign (#) before the word or phrase to tag it.

Use it in a sentence:

“Don’t forget to use the hashtag #tellstgiles when you instagram a picture of your last day.” (noun)

“I hashtaged my picture of the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge with #ilovesanfrancisco .” (verb)

Twitter is a great place to follow celebrities but did you know that you can also get daily grammar and vocabulary tips in your feed?   Here are some suggestions:

You can also follow St Giles @St_Giles

Instagram is a great place to connect with your friends, describe your daily adventures through pictures and text, and make new friends by following hashtags of places you’ve been and places you would like to visit! Don’t forget to follow St Giles San Francisco (stgilessanfrancisco), St Giles London Central (stgileslondoncentral) and St Giles Eastbourne (stgileseastbourne).

Facebook is one of the best ways to connect with friends from St Giles and practice your English together by messaging and commenting.  But another great way to use Facebook to is to like pages and to join and participate in groups for learning English.  Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

Of course, don’t forget to like the St Giles page for fun updates from each of our schools in England, Canada, and the USA.

Interested in social media as a career and want to see your favorite companies’ headquarters?  Come and study in San Francisco!  Twitter’s offices are only a few blocks away from our San Francisco school and Facebook, Instagram, and Google are all an hour away!  It’s an exciting time to live and study in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.  Come join us and instagram, tweet, and facebook your adventures.  Hashtag us at #tellstgiles so we can follow along!

Find out more about learning English with St Giles by studying at St Giles San Francisco.