The Role of Social Network Sites in Developing English Language Skills: Students- Voices
Puput Arfiandhani
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
Abstract
The advance of technology has provided a third virtual space where people from various regions and linguistic background can interact with each other. Social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, among others, are the examples of these spaces. As a lingua franca, English is often used to enable this cross-cultural interaction. Despite the plethora of articles on SNS use, not many empirical studies have investigated further on this topic. Therefore, this study aims at investigating the role of SNS in developing English language skills among university students. Qualitative research design is employed to answer the research questions. In-depth interview is used to explore participants experiences when using SNS. The participants of this study include 6 university students of a private university in Yogyakarta, Indonesia who were active users of SNS. All participants were enrolled in English language education department. The findings revealed that SNS played a significant role in developing participants- English language skills by intensifying their exposure to English, facilitating authentic interaction, providing linguistic knowledge, providing a comfortable place to learn and facilitating their need to express themselves.
Keywords: social media, English language skills, Social Network Sites (SNS), outer circle
Topic: International Conference of English Language Teaching, Literature & Linguistics