In line with the conference theme “Education in an Age of Uncertainty,” our study explores the concept of “rewilding language education” as proposed by Thorne et al. (2021). This concept emphasizes integrating students’ digital and offline language experiences into classroom learning environments. Our research specifically focuses on the utilization of social media and streaming platforms in fostering autonomous language learning and valorisation of linguistic diversity. This aligns with the Council of Europe's agenda, which focuses on viewing learners as social agents promoting their learning autonomy and engagement (Council of Europe, 2018).

In our study, we introduce a bridging activity in Russian and Spanish language courses at a Portuguese university, tailored for future educators, translators, and linguists.  Briging activity is a pedagogical design that aims to seamlessly integrate students’ extracurricular and academic language experiences, enhancing their informal language use (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008). Previous research on bridging activities with a similar focus on social media showed positive results including target culture awareness development (Miller et al., 2019; Yeh & Mitric, 2021) and socio-pragmatic awareness development (Reinhardt & Ryu, 2013). Most of these studies are focused on text-based social interaction, so there is a gap in research regarding video consumption. Our bridging activity focuses on video consumption, exploring informal language use on social media and streaming platforms, and autonomous learning development.

The bridging activity aims to achieve several objectives:

1. Enhancing language and cultural awareness: By involving students in classroom discussions on language learning through videos and maintaining auto-ethnographic diaries of their video consumption in various languages, the activity encourages the exploration of plurilingual digital landscapes. This approach is supported by studies indicating the effectiveness of similar activities in fostering cultural and socio-pragmatic awareness (Miller et al., 2019; Yeh & Mitric, 2021; Reinhardt & Ryu, 2013).

2. Promoting self-directed learning: The activity is structured to bolster self-directed learning by valuing sharing their learning experiences with their specific strategies and techniques for language learning and foreign language video consumption. This aims to empower students to actively integrate their digital media experiences into their language learning journey.

3. Developing algorithmic and critical awareness: A crucial aspect of our study is to develop students’ critical awareness regarding the dominance of the English language in digital media and the influence of algorithms on content exposure (Jones, 2021). This objective addresses the gap in existing research concerning video-based social interactions and their impact on language learning.

The pedagogical objectives of this bridging activity go hand and hand with our research questions including: 1. What are the benefits and pitfalls of the implemented bridging activity? 2. What are the students’ perceptions of the development of language, cultural and algorithmic awarenesses? 3. What are the students' perceptions on the promotion of self-directed learning?

Overall, our study advocates for a plurilingual stance, valuing learners’ agency and cultural awareness in language education (Marshall & Moore, 2016). This perspective is integral to fostering a more inclusive and diverse linguistic environment in the classroom. The following methods allow us to collect relevant data.

This study employs a design-based methodology (McKenney & Reeves, 2014), focusing on theoretical knowledge inquiry and practical application through a specifically tailored bridging activity Multilingualism and diversity in new media. It was implemented in four university language courses (3 Russian, 1 Spanish) with 26 participants in the Spring semester of 2023 at a level of a Bachelor degree of Language and Cultures faculty. The courses were from different levels: 1-Beginner (Russian); 2-Intermediate (Russian) and 3-Advanced (Russian and Spanish). The activity was extra-curricular and was implemented by the first author of the study. The activity comprised three parts: 1) Introducing the project in the classroom, discussing digital landscapes, and reflecting on multilingual video content (2-hour classroom); 2) An auto-ethnographic homework assignment where students documented and analyzed their online video consumption; 3) A follow-up classroom session for discussing the insights gained and creating visual maps reflecting their learning (2-hour classroom). The classes were given in the target language of the participants mixed with Portuguese and English for comprehension purposes. Objectives of the pedagogical activity were aligned with the research ones including enhancing language awareness, promoting self-directed learning and developing algorithmic and critical awareness. Data were collected from various sources, including 9 autoethnographic diaries, 10 visual maps, teacher observations (950 words), and 26 student questionnaires. Qualitative content analysis was applied to the diaries, maps, and teacher observations (Schreier, 2012), while the questionnaires were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Qualitative analysis categories were constructed by the first author of the study and validated by the co-authors.

The preliminary results indicate that according to the questionnaires the students perceived the proposed tasks as successful in developing strategies of autonomous language learning and also in enhancing their learning awareness by noticing out-of-the-classroom language improvements. Also, similar to the previous studies which were successful in developing the target culture awareness (Miller et al., 2019; Yeh & Mitric, 2021), in this bridging activity, the students mentioned that social media helped them to become aware of getting to know different linguistic varieties of their target languages, noticing cultural differences and peculiarities, and being more open to learning new languages. The teacher observations and students’ auto-ethnographic diaries indicated that almost all of the students used English in their social media before the activity, with very limited exposure to other languages. Due to questionnaires and visual maps, after the activity students tended to value the development of algorithmic awareness, and to diversify language exposure on social media (Jones, 2021). Interestingly, due to the teacher’s observations, beginner languages courses showed more enthusiasm in integrating these strategies into their learning, suggesting a potential area for further research. This contrasts with typical beginner language courses that focus on comprehensible input (Patrick, 2019). In summary, this study provides insights for curriculum development in higher education language courses suggesting transferable and transdisciplinary tasks for autonomous learning development. As a practical output, we will present a handbook of comprehensive materials from the bridging activity for language educators, contributing to knowledge transfer within the community of language educators.

Council of Europe. (2018). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Companion volume with new descriptors. https://rm. Coe. int/cefr-companion-volume-with-new-descriptors-2018/1680787989 Jones, R. (2021). The text is reading you: Teaching language in the age of the algorithm. Linguistics and Education (62), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2019.100750 Marshall, S., & Moore, D. (2016). Plurilingualism amid the panoply of lingualisms: Addressing critiques and misconceptions in education. International Journal of Multilingualism, 15(1), 19−34, https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2016.1253699 McKenney, S. E., & Reeves, T. C. (2013). Educational design research. In J. M. Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. Elan, & M. J. Bishop (Eds.), The handbook of research on educational and communications technology (131-140). Springer. Miller, A. M., Morgan, W. J., & Koronkiewicz, B. (2019). Like or tweet: Analysis of the use of Facebook and Twitter in the language classroom. TechTrends, 63, 550−558. Patrick, R. (2019). Comprehensible Input and Krashen's theory. Journal of Classics Teaching, 20(39), 37-44. Reinhardt, J., & Ryu, J. (2013). Using social network-mediated bridging activities to develop socio-pragmatic awareness in elementary Korean. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching (IJCALLT), 3(3), 18−33. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcallt.2013070102 Schreier, M. (2012). Qualitative content analysis in practice. Sage Publications Ltd. Thorne, S. L., Hellermann, J., and Jakonen, T. (2021). Rewilding language education: Emergent assemblages and entangled actions. The Modern Language Journal, 105(1), 106-125. Thorne, S. L., & Reinhardt, J. (2008). “Bridging activities,” new media literacies, and advanced foreign language proficiency. CALICO Journal, 25, 558–572. https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.v25i3.558-572 Yeh, E., & Mitric, S. (2021). Social media and learners-as-ethnographers approach: increasing target-language participation through community engagement. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2021.2005630 Zhang, L. T., and Vazquez-Calvo, B. (2022). “¿Triste estás? I don’t know nan molla” Multilingual pop song fandubs by@ miree_music. ITL-International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 173(2), 197-227.