The Impact of Social Media Application in Promoting Speaking Skill of Iraqi University learners of English: A Skype-based Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of applying social media, specifically, using Skype devices in teaching the speaking skill (Male/Female) as a supportive environment of English language teaching. Moreover, this study seeks to find whether the designed questionnaire enjoys the required validity and reliability. As a case study, the sample of the experiment consists of seventy sophomores major in English at Mustansiriya University in Iraq. The researcher randomly divided the participants into control and experimental cohorts. The two groups submitted to the pretest and posttest. The participants of the study reported their responses to a six-statement designed questionnaire on suitable ways of improving the speaking skill. Statistical data have been collected based on the Likert Scale questionnaire, while the statistical values, such as mean, tvalue, standard deviation, and chi-square, have been employed. The normality, confirmatory, validity, and reliability of the questionnaire were measured by using SPSS and LISREL programs. The research findings indicate that there is a significant difference in the speaking achievement between male and female participants who subjected to social media after receiving instructions via Skype devices. Based on these results, the impact of social media on students' achievements in speaking skills urges the need for a rethinking of the traditional method of teaching English. Further, educators should pay more attention to the process of employing social media applications in the educational domain.

Development of speaking teaching activities using communicative language teaching approach through social media for Bhutanese students

“…Therefore, the significant gains of the post-test on the speaking ability test result can be interpreted that teaching activities using CLT approach through social media can greatly enhance the speaking ability of students. The finding of the study supported the findings of (Mostafavi & Vahdany, 2016), and (Wongsa, 2018) Further, the findings of this study were congruent with the study results of (Devi et al, 2020), (Hasan Dirjal & Ghabanchi, 2020), (Hussin et al, 2020), and (Shan, 2019), which stated that the incorporation of mobile technology and different types of social media in the teaching of language can greatly enhance the speaking ability of the students due to flexible nature of social media which can be used at anytime from anywhere for learning. The studies stated that the improvement of the speaking ability after learning through incorporation of mobile technology was significant.…”

TESL Undergraduates’ Perceptions: Utilizing Social Media to Elevate Speaking Skills

“…A study by Mansor and Rahim (2017) also portrayed the same result. There were apparent increasing results on a post-test speaking mark rather than the pre-test, found in a study among Iraqi University English learners (Dirjal & Ghabanchi, 2020). The researchers used skype as social media to promote speaking skills.…”

“…In the ELLs context, speaking skills are the most significant to exhibit their communication skills for various purposes (Rao, 2019). Speaking skill, among other language learning skills, is the focus of educational specialists (Dirjal & Ghabanchi, 2020). Speaking skills play a vital role in many aspects, and there is a need for English as a Foreign Language or English (EFL) as a Second Language (ESL) learners to concentrate more on them (Rao, 2019).…”

Impacts of Using Instagram to Practice Speaking in English: Perspectives of Indonesian Non-English Major Learners

“…A study by Li (2017) reported the uses of social media by learners at a private university in Hong Kong to access additional materials, exchange the learning materials with friends, and do collaborative learning or discussion. In the field of L2 speaking specifically, recent studies on the use of social media to facilitate the learning of speaking have been carried out in various contexts, for example, Ukraine (Mykytiuk et al, 2022), Iraq (Dirjal & Ghabanchi, 2020), Bangladesh (Mitu, 2020), and Saudi Arabia (Binmahboob, 2020;Mustafa, 2018), probably suggesting the popularity of social media as well as the relevance of social media and L2 speaking these days.…”

“…The study reported that the language instructors saw YouTube as a beneficial instructional tool that could be used to teach speaking to secondary school learners. A study involving seventy Iraqi university learners by Dirjal and Ghabanchi (2020) reported that though the use of Skype applications positively influenced learners' speaking achievement, female learners were reported to score significantly higher than their male counterparts, suggesting that female learners may benefit from learning using social media more than their male counterparts. In addition, another social media, Facebook, was reported to obtain positive attitudes from 116 Ukrainian university learners (Mykytiuk et al, 2022).…”