THE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS AND ICT TOOLS USED BY INDONESIAN EFL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS TO IMPROVE THEIR ENGLISH

Manuel Mendonca Araujo

Abstract


Information and Communication Technology (ICT), with its social media platforms, is essential in the education field. This study aimed to discover ICT and its social media platforms used by Indonesian EFL undergraduate students to improve their English. This study was conducted to answer three research questions; (1) What ICT tools do Indonesian EFL undergraduate students use the most to improve their English? (2) What social media platforms (SMP) do Indonesian EFL undergraduate students use the most to improve their English? (3) Why do Indonesian EFL undergraduate students use social media platforms to improve their English? The mixed-method was adopted. The findings revealed that 60% of the participants were using phones at home and 71% using phones in the classrooms. Regarding social media platforms; Google was the first preferred search engine (M = 4.74, SD = .443), YouTube was the second (M = 4.49, SD = .781), TikTok (M = 3.51, SD = 1.442) and Instagram (M = 3.51, SD = .951) were the third preferred social media platforms to improve English. The participants affirmed that using phones is effective to improve English at home and in the classroom. Google, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram are the common and easiest platforms that are helpful in empowering English. Based on the findings this study recommends that language teachers should adopt these ICT tools to improve students’ level of using ICT and its media platforms. The future researchers could undertake extensive research on the same topic to involve more EFL students from different universities to figure out more representative findings. The implications of this study are discussed.


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Keywords


improve English; information and communication technology (ICT); social media platforms

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.33508/mgs.v52i1.5331