Can social media promote social presence and attitude in EFL classes?

Abstract

It is true that social media has a significant presence in today’s world and has become an integral part of our lives. Researchers have been trying to find ways to integrate social media to language classes to take advantage of the possibilities social media can offer such as fostering students’ engagement with the language, increasing their motivation and making them socially and collaboratively connected. The underlying idea behind this is to take advantage of the possibilities social media can offer to achieve a better learning environment resulting with more effective learning outcomes. Thus, this study seeks to understand and reveal the effects of integrating social media on students’ social presence and their attitudes to it when social media is integrated in foreign language classes. Facebook was used as part of high school students’ curriculum in English lessons. Explanatory mixed design was used. Data were analysed by using paired samples t-test and content analysis. The results of the study showed that there was no significant difference in students’ attitude to social media but there was a significant difference in their social presence.