ARTICLES

 

Using social media for teaching English during the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons from Indonesia

 

 

Herli Salim^I; Afrianto Daud^II; Muhammad Hanif^III

^IDepartment of Primary School Teacher Education, UPI Serang Campus, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia. herlisalim@upi.edu
^IIDepartment of English Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Riau, Pekanbaru, Indonesia
^IIIFaculty of Education, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Surabaya, Indonesia and Department of Primary School Teacher Education, UPI Serang Campus, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia

 

 

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ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 outbreak has changed pedagogical choices in the teaching of English. Social media has become one of the alternatives in mediating and assisting virtual teaching and learning. With the study reported on here we aimed to investigate the use of social media in the teaching of English during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesian schools. In this exploratory study we employed a 40-item questionnaire focusing on the types of social media used, skills taught, problems encountered, and how these were managed. The respondents were 158 English teachers from 34 provinces in Indonesia. The data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively to generate interactive and comprehensive data. From the study it became clear that the most frequently used social media platforms in Indonesia were WhatsApp, YouTube, and Instagram. The combination of social media was found to be a suitable platform to employ for acquiring all English skills. Reasons for the use of social media range from practicality to teachers' familiarity. Teachers' teaching experience tended to influence the reasons why social media were used. The results of our study reveal that the internet networks, learners' readiness as well as parents' support were challenges encountered by learners. To solve these problems, teachers implemented some alternative social media platforms and communicated with parents to enhance English teaching during the pandemic.

Keywords: English teaching; online teaching; pandemic; social media

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Introduction

Various information and communication technology (ICT)-based learning platforms and methods were used to support learning developers in planning and implementing online learning systems during the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19). Various platforms like applications, websites, social media, or learning management systems (LMS) can be employed effectively in online teaching and learning. Multiple available platforms are used to facilitate learning, deliver material, do assessment, or simply for the submission of assignments (Gunawan, Suranti & Fathoroni, 2020). Social media, among others, provide a series of available platforms. Since most social media can be accessed freely, it has become one of the alternative sources of advanced adaptive distance learning. Social media can connect teachers and learners easily and help teachers to facilitate learning. Social media also attract people's interest more since all ages find it engaging - especially the youth (Bozzola, Spina, Agostiniani, Barni, Russo, Scarpato, Di Mauro, Di Stefano, Caruso, Corsello & Staiano, 2022; Shahbaznezhad, Dolan & Rashidirad, 2021; Zhang, L & Jung, 2022). It also has a massive impact on modern communication due to its simplicity and various features (Allcott, Braghieri, Eichmeyer & Gentzkow, 2020). For these reasons, social media positively bridge the gap between learners and teachers, and create a more informal, collegial, and interactive learning environment (Bozarth, 2010). Social media have the facilities and functionality that allowed for interaction through remote teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many scholars recommended the use of social media as an alternative platform to reach learners during the pandemic - not only because of its potential to provide teachers with learners' authentic profiles, but also because it can assist teachers in building relationships with learners in spite of social distancing while creating and sharing collaborative digital materials (Greenhow & Galvin, 2020; Thaariq, 2020). Teachers can combine social media features such as text writing on a timeline, Messenger, live streaming, and Chatbox facilities with varied teaching methods in their courses to enhance traditional distance learning approaches.

Literature Review

The need to integrate technology in English teaching has grown along with the rapid technological development since the need for social distancing arose. This resulted in a worldwide digital transformation in education (Mhlanga & Moloi, 2020). Synchronous online learning using video conferencing applications in schools was common practice during the pandemic (Rinekso & Muslim, 2020; Zhang, K & Wu, 2022). English teaching, which focuses on producing communicative language and interaction as learning activity, needs interactive and direct feedback to respond to the language produced. The online, synchronous language classroom environment is distinctly different from the face-to-face classroom in the way that teachers and learners communicate (Stanley, 2017). Teachers and learners in different physical locations cannot interact with each other easily. Environmental distractors and a myriad of technical issues can make it more difficult for learners to engage (Peachey, 2017). Synchronous interaction can substitute this way of teaching so that the use of video conferencing and social media applications will be beneficial (Nadeak, 2020).

Language teachers generally find it challenging to switch from traditional face-to-face teaching in a classroom to online teaching (Comas-Quinn, 2011). The problems range from pedagogical aspects to technological issues. This seems to be a worldwide phenomenon. Several studies have addressed these issues in different regional contexts, including Indonesia (Fitria, 2020), Australia (Gore, Fray, Miller, Harris & Taggart, 2021), and South Africa (Mukuna & Aloka, 2020). Mukuna and Aloka (2020) found that certain factors made online learning more problematic. These factors include poor parental involvement in children's homework, incomplete work and poor performance, insufficient personal protective equipment, poor network access, and a lack of learning devices.

In communicative language teaching (CLT), learners' communicative competence is regarded as the main parameter in language learning (Thornbury, 2016). Social media technology, therefore, is supposed to cover the demand of transferring spoken as well as written communication. In embracing the paradigm of English as foreign language (EFL), learning English in Indonesia has increasingly encountered barriers when native speakers attempt to acquire it while authentic learning material is limited. Teachers are required to create their own material and then distribute it widely and quickly to reach far and wide (Fansury, Januarty, Rahman & Syawal, 2020). In addition, the geographic conditions and unequal distribution of support for regional connectivity in Indonesia certainly affect teachers' strategies in teaching English in learning-from-home situations. Teachers' socio-cultural influence, relationship with learners, the learning culture, and other social values form part of decision-making in online teaching (Johnson & Golombek, 2016). The selection of the types of social media to use and the management thereof must be appropriate for learning (Cheung, 2023).

Many skills and language components in English need to be taught to provide learners with comprehensive language knowledge. The challenges that teachers might face in teaching production skills (speaking and writing) certainly differ from teaching receptive skills (reading and listening). In teaching speaking and listening skills, for example, the aspect of media ability in delivering audio will be the main concern in online English classes. This is also similar for various other skills and aspects such as vocabulary and cross-cultural understanding (CCU). In teaching writing and reading skills, the requirement of social media to post and rephrase concise posts or meaningful messages in a limited number of words will be more beneficial and will encourage learners to explore critical reading. By virtue of their specific features, certain types of social media may only be feasible for certain types of skills learning. The proper choice of social media for certain skills learning depends on pedagogical and technical considerations (Sutiah, Slamet, Shafqat & Supriyono, 2020). Thus, using social media in learning English is predicted to have a specific pattern. Literature on English language skills and the use of social media is limited. Therefore, it is important to capture the pattern references, cases, and practice of English courses using social media platforms.

Theoretical Concept

Recent studies discovered some gaps regarding results in English teaching in several Indonesian regions. Some scholars investigated Indonesian teachers' different methodological choices of the use of social media before and during the pandemic (Al Arif, 2019; Fitria, 2020). One study reported on the variation of teachers' use of social media during the pandemic in the Mataram region, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia (Gunawan et al., 2020). Most studies covered limited cases in the eastern (Fansury et al., 2020; Gunawan et al., 2020), central (Handayani, Syafei & Utari, 2020; Nihayati & Indriani, 2021), or western (Al Arif, 2019) areas of Indonesia. These studies covered the improvement in teachers' online competencies, which highly contributed to the learners' achievements (Rafidiyah & Bayeck, 2016). Problems regarding the use of social media in English teaching in Indonesia were found at all education levels - from a single case in primary (Roistika, 2021) to higher education (Al Arif, 2019; Fitria, 2020; Nihayati & Indriani, 2021). Therefore, it is essential to explore the dynamics of the use of social media during the pandemic from the teachers' point of view.

The adoption of technologies amplifies educational inequality. Improved access to and acceptance of technology can lead to heightened educational inclusion but also further discrimination in rural areas. Socio-demographic characteristics are associated with unequal implementation of technology. Social media, with its ability for personal branding, relationship-building, and content creation, when comprehensively implemented into a distance education system potentially help teachers and learners to stay involved and connected (Greenhow & Galvin, 2020). Among the demographic issues are the lack of educational and technological infrastructure and skilled teachers, negative attitudes towards online learning, as well as social and cultural restrictions (Pimmer, Chipps, Brysiewicz, Walters, Linxen & Grohbiel, 2016). The same applies in the school context. Therefore, it was important to investigate the implementation of social media in those disadvantaged areas.

The COVID-19 pandemic appeared to cause numerous problems for the teaching of English throughout the world. However, we did not find any research on this issue in Indonesia. With this study the aim was to report on the influence of the use of social media in the teaching of English during a pandemic for areas in Indonesia, the problems that teachers encountered, and how they sought to solve the problems. With the study we also offer a description for all Indonesian areas impacted by the pandemic and thus hopefully contribute comprehensive explanations for all areas. How English teachers dealt with the problems in English teaching while fighting against the pandemic may act as a model of typical action in educational settings during similar situations in the future.

 

Methodology

With this study we aimed to investigate the use of social media in terms of frequency, patterns and pedagogical challenges in the teaching of English during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted from June to October 2020, a few months after school closures due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Indonesia. A survey questionnaire was designed using Google Forms and was distributed to potential respondents (English teachers) throughout Indonesia via various platforms such as WhatsApp groups, short message service (SMS), and Zoom meetings after a webinar session. The survey was used to systematically describe the facts of the phenomenon (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) or the relationships between events and the phenomenon of using social media in teaching and learning. We employed simple random sampling to reach respondents from all areas in Indonesia. One hundred and fifty-eight respondents from 34 provinces in Indonesia completed the survey. Ninety-six respondents (60.8%) were senior high school teachers, 48 (30.4%) were junior high school teachers, and the rest taught elementary school learners (14 respondents or 8.9%). Apart from the respondents' profile section, the survey consists of several sections aiming to collect quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative section deals with the frequency of social media use by English teachers and the kinds of skills taught using social media. The qualitative section deals with challenges that the respondents experienced in using social media to teach English.

The quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) version 26 for Windows.

Descriptive statistical analysis was carried out to describe the respondents' profile data in the form of a percentage distribution, and to explain the modes and variance of the questionnaire results, based on the demographics of the respondents, variables, and questionnaire items. Descriptive analysis was carried out by examining the correlation among the modes and variance values to demographics profiles, i.e., gender, age, employment status, years of service, and also based on each variable and questionnaire statement item. The qualitative analysis was employed to find the potential data from the essay and leading question items. This analysis was conducted using NVivo to determine how frequently respondents used social media for teaching, which social media they used, which skills were considered to be most effectively taught through social media, and which obstacles they encountered when using social media to teach English from the weighted percentages of counted words. The weighted percentage analysis was used to find the selected relevant responses from counting words for translation, which presents all levels of repetition in a single line item from an open question response.

 

Results

Respondents' Profile

In this section we describe the respondents' profile in the form of a percentage distribution, and the modes and variance of the questionnaire results based on the demographics of the respondents, variables, and questionnaire items.

The respondents in this survey were mainly female (62.7%) compared to male respondents (37.3%). The respondents' ages ranged from under 30 years to above 40 years old (proportionally about 22%). Most of the respondents in this study were teachers with bachelor degree qualifications (70.3%). Some of the respondents had less, but half of the respondents had more than 10 years' teaching experience (50%). This survey also reached respondents with a range of different employment statuses, such as civil servants (47.5%), regular employees (16.5%), and non-permanent teachers (36.1%). We also classified the respondents according to the area and geographic region. Although participation was dominated by respondents from western Indonesia (89.2%), this survey also involved respondents from the central (8.9%) and eastern areas of Indonesia (1.9%). We also classified the respondents based on urban (51.3%) and rural (48.7%) areas. The demographics are presented in Table 1.

The Frequency and Reasons for Using Social Media in English Teaching and Learning

The most essential finding was that almost all of the respondents (93.7%) used social media for teaching English. Respondents' responses can be divided into three categories - "always", "often", and "sometimes" regarding the use of social media in teaching English with 38%, 37.3%, and 24.7% respectively. This indicates the wide range and high frequency of English teachers' use of social media when teaching English (cf. Table 1).

Descriptive analysis was carried out to determine the mode and variance values based on the results of the questionnaire. The findings focus on the use of social media and the frequency of using social media in teaching and learning, and each variable and questionnaire statement items. The correlations between the respondents' profiles regarding the use of social media (SM) and the frequency of the use of social media in English teaching (FL) are presented in Table 2. We sought the correlation through several tests to each nominal and ordinal datum.

We found that two correlations existed between SM and AG and SM and YS. The correlation between SM and AG obtained a significance value of 0.025 (< 0.05) after Cramer's V test, which means that the teachers age correlates with the use of social media. The significance value of correlation on FL and YS was 0.038 (< 0.05) which shows that the years of teaching experience agree with the use of social media in teaching. The relationship between AG and SM shows the tendency for social media to be used by persons above 30 years old. The assumption could mean that the respondents under 30 years used social media for other activities rather than for teaching. Furthermore, the YS is also congruent to FL (0.035 < 0.05). It means that the teachers with more than 10 years' experience of teaching more frequently used

social media in the teaching of English.

Table 1 shows a balanced proportion of the use (SM) and the frequency (FL) of social media for English teaching in both urban and rural areas (GR). We found that neither SM and GR (0.461 > 0.05) nor FL and GR (0.120 > 0.005) were positively related. The two data syntheses clearly illustrate that social media was an alternative used equally in urban and rural areas. This shows that social media positively bridges the inequality that exists in different geographic areas that previously arose in many assumptions.

Reasons for Social Media Use in English

Figure 1 summarises four important reasons why English teachers decided to use social media for their teaching.

The top four reasons for using social media to teach English during the pandemic were that the social media platform was perceived as an easy, prompt, familiar, and inexpensive platform. The ease of using social media has become the most influential factor for scholars using it in learning. Presumably, teachers and learners were more familiar with social media than they were with other platforms because it was quick and inexpensive. The issue of cost did not come into play because, in addition to internet quota subsidies from the government, the use of social media is inherent in everyday life - it becomes a common component of community's financial budgeting, especially for educators.

Types of Social Media Used in English Teaching

As seen in Figure 2, WhatsApp dominated the use of social media in this survey. More than 90% of respondents used WhatsApp as a primary platform in teaching English. The selection of WhatsApp was not too surprising when considering the compatibility features used in various conditions. The result also reflected that WhatsApp was the most frequently used communication tool in Indonesia, and therefore, teachers tended to focus on the communicative activity when using social media for teaching English during the pandemic. Due to its video sharing ability, YouTube also became an alternative medium - 43.67% of English teachers used YouTube to deliver material. Instagram, Facebook, and Line completed the top five social media platforms used in English teaching and learning.

In addition to the social media alternatives, (cf. Figure 3), respondents also revealed several platforms commonly used to teach English during the pandemic. Some familiar platforms used for video conferences such as Zoom and Google Meet were mentioned. Even though most teachers used a free platform (Google Classroom) to share material and conduct online activities, some teachers used specific electronic learning (e-learning) websites designed by their institutions.

Kinds of English Skills Taught Using Social Media

As shown in Figure 4, social media evidently covers all skills taught by English teachers. The use of social media also allowed for the skills that the learners were expected to master. The respondents tended to employ social media to teach several skills rather than only one specific skill (reading, writing, speaking or listening). This finding also shows that more than 50% of respondents were able to continue teaching all skills during the pandemic through the assistance of social media. This shows that social media positively helped teachers to maintain their teaching goals to improve learners' English skills and avoid any learning loss during the pandemic.

The distribution of the types of skills being taught through social media are presented in Figure 5. WhatsApp and YouTube were the most commonly used social media in all skills by an average percentage of 77.5% and 45.6% respectively. Facebook outperformed YouTube only on CCU learning alternatives in second place. It shows that teachers tended to use direct communicative tools such as WhatsApp for productive skills and videos on YouTube for receptive skills of English during teaching.

The Obstacles Encountered when Using Social Media for Teaching English

In finding the problems and the strategies for dealing with the use of social media, we looked at the results of the open questions to those two questions. The answers are classified and presented in Table 3.

Based on the word frequency analysis from NVivo, it was found that the internet network was the most common obstacle teachers encountered when teaching English using social media. This is understandable considering that all regions in Indonesia do not have a strong and stable internet network. The use of social media to teach depends on the speed and stability of the internet network because network problems are immediately felt in practice. The data in this study confirm that even though some teachers found themselves in disadvantaged areas, they were aware of social media's potential and were willing to use social media in teaching. Learners' readiness to use social media is also one of the arising problems. For some levels of learners, the use of social media may still be limited and they might thus not be ready to use social media for learning. Before the pandemic, social media was not used widely for teaching and learning, so supporting parents, schools, and perhaps the bureaucracy could be considered a new challenge because not all parents and schools previously had rules to regulate learners' use of smartphones during study time. As a result of the fact that devices were unavailable in many areas, not all types of social media could be used.

Teachers' Strategies for Facing Problems when Using Social Media for Teaching English

Teachers applied several strategies to deal with various problems. Facing difficulties in determining social media options, teachers usually use other platforms that are more feasible for use. During the pandemic the use of social media was still in the trial phase. Teachers now found themselves in the trial-and-error stage when using social media and were flexible in incorporating strategies to overcome any problems of using social media when teaching English. This can be seen in Table 4.

 

 

The learning process for lower-grade elementary school learners also still includes blended learning, which means that teachers conduct home visits to carry out face-to-face teaching at home in combination with social media. Such home visits also allow teachers to communicate with parents, which is important because parents need to know about the use of social media and other platforms in online learning. This will help with parental supervision that could ensure that online learning happens regularly and is more manageable. Online learning is still considered a challenge for learners. The dramatic shift from face-to-face learning to fully online due to the need for social distancing forced learners to adapt their learning style. The decrease in learning motivation and interactivity of the classroom interaction affected the learning results. Indonesian teachers countered this obstacle by providing initial motivation and leading group interaction to make the classes come alive.

 

Discussion

Most English teachers are experienced in using social media to teach, and only 6.3% of respondents in this study had not used it. Based on this, English teachers in this study had a good perception of using social media and evidently believed that social media could help them to perform better in an online educational setting (Rasmitadila, Aliyyah, Rachmadtullah, Samsudin, Syaodih, Nurtanto & Tambunan, 2020). The wide variance in age, teaching experience, and gender also supports the worldwide range and high frequency of English teachers' use of social media (Baioz, 2016; Jogezai, Baloch, Jaffar, Shah, Khilji & Bashir, 2021; Meirovitz, 2022). We found that there was no significant difference among regions. Teachers in rural and urban areas had good access to social media. Even though the internet connection was still a challenge, the western, central, and eastern regions of Indonesia all used social media to different degrees to provide instruction during social distancing. Social media helped to reduce feelings of disconnection that learners experience in online learning (Faizi, El Afia & Chiheb, 2013; Greenhow & Chapman, 2020; Krutka & Damico, 2020).

The frequency of using social media in English teaching and learning may also have occurred before the pandemic, but during the pandemic its use tended to be positively optimised to maintain social distancing which may potentially be sustained in years to come. So, there is a shift in behaviour regarding the prolonged use of social media for academic purposes (Kolhar, Kazi & Alameen, 2021). The implementation can drive the learners' habitual behaviours to use social media to support their learning rather than to distract them causing poor academic performance and social, physical and mental health problems (Krutka, Manca, Galvin, Greenhow, Koehler & Askari, 2019).

The perception of the strength of social media platforms varied with WhatsApp being perceived to be the most effective (Nihayati & Indriani, 2021; Sakkir, Dollah & Ahmad, 2020). Most teachers believed that WhatsApp provided them with comfort and active participation in the discussion of the materials during online teaching and learning. WhatsApp, therefore, was the primary platform used to teach English (see Figure 2). The popularity of WhatsApp as medium for teaching during lockdown has also been reported in studies in the South African context (see Nel & Marais, 2020; Young, 2020). The selection of WhatsApp may be due to the compatibility features that support flexibility of learning.

Most respondents reported that they had used social media as an alternative platform to the classroom for teaching and learning. The most popular platforms were WhatsApp and YouTube. Self-directed online learning requires instructors and learners to periodically check notifications of new materials and feedback information. WhatsApp allows learners to easily find new notifications since the app operates on mobile devices. WhatsApp can also overcome the problem of stable network requirements. In some regions, these strengths were beneficial in addition to enhancing writing activity and digital file sharing (Fansury et al., 2020; Gunawan et al., 2020).

Regarding targeted skills in the learning of English as a foreign language, Indonesian teachers addressed almost all language skills in an equal manner rather than focusing only on enhanced writing, although the tendency is to use social media mostly for writing skills (Carpenter, Morrison, Craft & Lee, 2020; Vie, 2018). The respondents showed that various social media types were accepted in all school contexts for all language skills. The use of social media by teachers depended on issues of accessibility, communicative ability, and interactivity design for teaching and learning. The importance of interactive and communicative tools to enhance learners' participation in the class made them speak more frankly about their excitement at using social media in the classroom to alleviate the problem of losing concentration due to technology failure (Vie, 2018).

This research emphasises that the use of social media allowed teachers to continue their English teaching during the strict pandemic challenge. We did not investigate the effectiveness of the use of social media for increasing learner competence since several previous studies have proven this (Anwas, Sugiarti, Permatasari, Warsihna, Anas, Alhapip, Siswanto & Rivalina, 2020; Muftah, 2022).

These studies were conducted before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, so further research could explicitly examine the impact of social media on improving learners' English performance and communication skills beyond the context of the pandemic.

Learners' ICT skills are no longer a serious barrier for teachers in the implementation of social media for teaching and learning. The use of social media has become a trend for the millennial generation (Fansury et al., 2020). Internet network access for learners in certain regions and their readiness to use such are the most frequent problems for teachers. To overcome the problem, teachers sought suitable platforms to provide better online learning situations (Mao, 2014). In some regions, teachers used a combination of social media platforms and face-to-face learning. They still believed that the blended learning model could be helpful for learners at the elementary level. Doing home visits and adhering to strict health protocol were teachers' way to reach out and respond to learners' learning diversity. The effectiveness of online learning using social media was also supported by parental assistance. Therefore, the communication and full support from parents were taken into account in using social media.

 

Conclusion

Due to health protocols imposed during the pandemic, English teachers in Indonesia actively changed their teaching approaches, media, and teaching methods, and relied on online teaching using social media as alternative tools for mediating and assisting learning. Indonesian teachers frequently used WhatsApp, YouTube, and Instagram in teaching English. With varying frequency, English teachers also used Google Classroom, Zoom, and e-learning platforms combined with social media. This combination was experienced as suitable to address all English skills that learners were expected to master. Reasons for the use of social media ranged from its practicality to teachers' familiarity with it. In addition to access, the years of teaching experience also tended to influence the reasons to use social media. This study also revealed elements that played a negative role, such as the internet network and learners' readiness, as well as parents' support where learners experienced technical problems. To solve these problems, teachers implemented some alternative platforms and communicated with parents. Doing home visits and motivating learners are potential practical solutions to cope with learners' readiness. The findings provide another account of and insight into the problems of using social media and considerations of alternative platforms in enhancing teaching and learning during the pandemic in the Indonesian context. The authors suggest further research to explicitly address the deeper dynamics of using social media for English teaching using a different scope, user perspective and combination to the relevant strategy used towards its effectiveness in the class.

 

Acknowledgement

This publication is fully supported by the Centre for Higher Education Funding (BPPT) PUSLAPDIK and the Indonesia Endowment Funds for Education (LPDP) as the third author is an awardee of the BPI Scholarship for Doctoral Programs in Universitas Negeri Surabaya. This publication is not a conference paper or part of a doctoral dissertation.

 

Authors' Contributions

HS contributed to the design of the research, the results analysis, and the writing of the manuscript. AD contributed by setting up and distributing the questionnaires, collecting additional qualitative data, and writing up the introductory information and discussion section. MH conceived the idea, developed the theoretical section, conducted all statistical analysis, and contributed to the final presentation of the data.

 

Notes

i. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence.

 

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Received: 14 July 2021
Revised: 23 February 2024
Accepted: 11 April 2024
Published: 31 August 2024