The Role of Youtube in the Development of the Linguistic Competence of the Students

Abstract

The variety of ways of constructing and conveying meaning in the 21st century has led to developments in teaching methods and practices. Nowadays, English language teachers try to adapt to the changing needs of the students, and apart from the traditional coursebook-bound tasks and activities, multimedia tools have been applied to facilitate learning. The present paper particularly investigates the use of YouTube as an aid in the development of students’ linguistic competence in the English as a second language classroom. YouTube has proved to be one of the primary open-access platforms, offering a great variety of both educational and entertainment content. The paper aims to research the advantages of applying multimedia materials in the English language classroom, the features of YouTube, as well as the characteristic features and the typical tasks used to develop linguistic competence. Considering the advice given by the researchers on the design of the tasks aimed at the development of linguistic competence and paying special attention to metaphors, idioms, phrasal verbs, and general vocabulary items, the paper offers the tasks aimed at linguistic competence development based on the two YouTube videos. Moreover, students’ perception of the use of YouTube as an aid to educators in the English as a second language classroom is investigated by applying the survey research method.