The Impact of Social Media on the Learning of English Vocabulary among Saudi ESL Students

Abstract

Social media play a critical role in promoting the learning of a second language by facilitating interaction among their users around the world and by providing them a wide range of resources. One of these resources is vocabulary, which is considered vital to acquiring a second language. However, most studies on the use of social media to learn English vocabulary focused only on students of English as a foreign language (EFL), and studies on Saudi students are still being conducted. The current study was conducted to fill these research gaps.

This study explored the attitudes of Saudi students of English as a second language (ESL) who were studying in the United Kingdom towards the use of social media to develop their English vocabulary. This study also investigated how the use of social media promoted English vocabulary learning by Saudi ESL students.

This study was quantitative research study of 73 randomly recruited Saudi ESL students (43 female and 30 male, above 18 years old) living and studying in the UK. The data were gathered through a 20-item questionnaire and then analysed with descriptive statistical tools using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software.

The results showed that Saudi ESL students had a positive attitude towards the use of social media to develop English vocabulary and that they actually using social media to learn English vocabulary. The study clearly showed that social media should be used to develop ESL students’ English vocabulary.