Abstract
<p>Social media technologies have undeniably become an integral part of people’s lives and they have been widely used amonsgest the new genrations, particularly, university students. This widespread of social media technologies has certainly made a huge impact on the way people learn and interact with each other resulting in the emergence of communities of learning that are supported by collective intelligence. This study is based on quantitative methods using a survey instrument to gather descriptive data regarding the perceptions of seventy-five (<em>n=75) </em>randomly chosen male and female English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers at two Saudi tertiary institutions. The study utilized a 14 Likert scale statements where each statement had five Likert-type items for the participants to choose from. Analysis of the gathered data indicated that the majority of the participants believe strongly in the pedagoocal values and benefits of using social media as an ELT tool in the EFL classes in the Saudi context. Nevertheless, the majority expressed reservations with regards to the extent to which social media can be freely allowed to be used in the EFL classroom where they perceive it as having a double edged sword effect and that is mainly due to some undesired distractions that some students may resort to which may occasionaly result in the opposite of the intended effect of their usage. The study recommends more research studies in this area so as to closely understand how experienced EFL teachers utilize social media in their classes in order to develop best practices for implementing social media in teaching and learning in EFL in the Saudi contexts</p>
Highlights
1.1 Introduce the ProblemIn the past decade, social media technologies have certainly caused a revolution in the world of communication and networking
This study aimed to look at the perceptions of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in using social media as a pedagogical approach when teaching English as a second language (L2) and what factors hinder such adoption
It is certain that teachers around the world understand the impact of social media and the numerous advantages they can bring to the EFL classroom, especially to reading and writing skills
Summary
1.1 Introduce the ProblemIn the past decade, social media technologies have certainly caused a revolution in the world of communication and networking. The wealth of information that is available on social media websites can be accessed at anytime from anywhere in the world, due to the features that are best known as cloud-based technologies (Johnson, Adams, & Cummins, 2012). It is inevitable that these new generations of digital natives have certain expectations about the way they believe learning should be practiced and how it should evolve, to have social media as an integral part of this learning process With this fast growing and rapid change in the world of communication technologies, culture, pedagogy, and developments in knowledge, it is crucial for the teacher in this era to be familiar with such new educational changes, mainly those relating to technology. It is no doubt that we see this teaching-learning barrier which exists on one hand, between the www.ccsenet.org/elt
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