Informal Learning / Affinity Spaces / Communities of Practice Research Paper (25 mins)
The Use of Instagram to Enhance EFL Learners’ Speaking Skills
Speaking skills demands preparedness from the learners but students are not motivated to speak, a major reason being the lack of vocabulary and fear of making mistakes. Therefore, to enrich preparedness among EFL students’ educators are adopting different web tools one such tool that is gaining immense popularity due to its users is Instagram. This research intends to explore whether short vlogs on Instagram can help students in improving their speaking skills and how learners perceive the integration of Instagram in their speaking classes. 22 students from foundations level four at the University of technology and applied sciences, Nizwa, Oman participated in this study. The researcher administered the pretest and posttests to analyze the effect of Instagram vlogs on the speaking competence of EFL learners. A significant difference can be seen in the students’ speaking. Therefore, it is recommended that vlogs can be implemented to enhance EFL learners speaking skills.
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Ms. Asiya Tabassum has been working as a lecturer at University of Technology and Applied sciences, Nizwa, Oman since 2012. She did her masters’ from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. In addition, a certificate course in TESOL from American Training Institute, Kerala, India. A certification in IELTS (TTT) from British council. Her research interests are using education technologies and experimenting writing skills using different platforms.