A JOURNAL SUMMARY (13)

Perceptions of Using Social Media as an ELT Tool among EFL Teachers in the Saudi Context

Madawi Allam & Tariq Elyas

English Language Teaching; Vol. 9, No. 7; 2016 ISSN 1916-4742 E-ISSN 1916-4750 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

The widespread of social media usage has impacted the way people interact around the world. Also, the rapid growth of social media has emerged new paradigm in education. Therefore, it is crucial for the teacher in this era to be familiar with such new educational changes, mainly those changes that relate to technology. This journal (study) emphasized on how EFL teachers’ perceptions in using social media as an ELT tool in Saudi Arabia context. The study involved in quantitative approach which used survey method to gather the data. The participants were 75 participants (35 males and 40 females). All the participants worked at two different Saudi universities in two different cities.

The study employed a 14 Likert scale statements where each statement had five Likert-type items for the participants to choose from. The data was analyzed using One Way ANOVA. The result showed that EFL teachers do perceive social media as a vital pedagogical tool in the EFL classroom. However, there were some barriers that they faced; for example, the current curriculums did not accommodate social media in the taught materials and another barrier was in the time allocation (modular semester).