Social Media influencing Speaking Skills of English Learners: A Review of Existing Literature
Ahmed Ali Ansari
Ms scholar at Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshooro
Dr. Sahib Khatoon
Director Center of English language and LinguisticsMehran university of engineering &technologyJamshoro
Abstract
This review paper is an attempt to present a synopsis of the body of literature on social media use incessantly influencing language learners’ speaking skills. This paper primarily aims to understand how social media platforms, more precisely Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, influencing English language learners’ speaking skills. A total of 31 research articles were retrieved from three databases Google Scholar, Science Direct, and Research Gate, ranging from 2014 to 2024. To find out the most pertinent articles a procedure was strictly followed meanwhile, certain key words were used as prompts to extract the relevant research papers from the databases. Afterwards, these papers were thoroughly reviewed and analyzed. This narrative review's findings reveal that the using social media is positively influencing the speaking skills of English language learners. The younger generation these days uses social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube on a regular basis. Through these forums learners get enough exposure of English language by watching videos where they witness the speakers of English, both native and non-native, using English language fluently and accurately. Moreover, these platforms also offer them the opportunities to practice English language fearlessly. Furthermore, they are a having stress-free environment suitable enough to acquire a language and develop their speaking skills. On the basis of the thorough analysis of the available research, it is suggested that future studies needs to be carried out to explore more about the effects of social media on the important areas of speaking like pronunciation, fluency and accuracy while speaking in English language; how English learners can master these areas using different platforms of social media.
Key words: speaking skills, social media, English language learning, social networking sites (SNS).
