WhatsApp as a Useful Tool to Strengthen EFL Learners’ Academic Writing Creativity: Exploring Students’ and Teachers' Voices

Abstract

The research initiatives have often delved into the challenges of academic writing creativity, particularly among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Even though studies have investigated the creativity in writing across different contexts including integrating technology through social media platforms; there remains a dearth of research to explore WhatsApp’s usefulness in improving EFL learners’ writing creativity particularly Arabic speakers’ context. Therefore, the present study attempts to discover WhatsApp as a useful tool to strengthen EFL learners’ academic writing creativity from students and teachers’ perspectives. This study, through descriptive survey research method and a set of instruments: a questionnaire and semi-structured interview, was applied to a sample of (N=50) undergraduate students and (N=20) teachers. According to finding, students opined a ‘high’ perception that WhatsApp significantly enhance their writing creativity in terms of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar, whereas teachers do not see much advantage of WhatsApp in improving students' academic writing creativity. Also, the participant role (student, teacher) affected views about the usefulness of WhatsApp in enhancing writing creativity, and thus the responses were different based on the participation role. Additionally, the content analysis revealed the challenges encountered by the learners when using WhatsApp as a tool to strengthen their writing creativity. Based on the study findings, suggestions, recommendations, and implications are presented.