Languaging, Learning, and Livestreaming: A Social Media Ethnography Towards a Framework on Pedagogical Ecology for Educational Livestreams

This study investigates the language practices and audience engagement strategies used in Facebook educational livestreams to understand how these contribute to informal digital learning. Using a social media ethnographic approach, it draws on Hymes’ SPEAKING model and Multimodal Discourse Analysis (Kress & van Leeuwen) to analyze 13 livestreams by a popular Filipino educational content creator. Findings show six recurring interactional patterns—calls to respond, praise utterances, encouragement, expository talk, pedagogical humor, and multimodal engagement—used to enhance engagement and learning. These are situated within a larger pedagogical ecology characterized by the deliberate construction of a safe, inclusive space; streamer-led interaction patterns using adaptive and multimodal feedback; and the normalization of bi-/multilingual discourse to foster rapport and comprehension. The study proposes the Pedagogical Ecology for Educational Livestreams (PEEL) Framework, which illustrates how strategic language use and engagement can transform passive viewership into interactive learning. This framework offers timely implications amid the current education crisis in the Philippines, showing how students’ social media use can support learning beyond formal classrooms. It also underscores the value of combining ethnographic and multimodal analysis in exploring emerging informal learning spaces.