THE PERCEPTIONS OF ENGLISH SENIOR STUDENTS ON USING FACEBOOK IN THEIR LEARNING

Abstract

The popularity and academic potential of social networking sites (SNSs) have grown bigger in recent years. However, this surge of a phenomenon has not been truly considered thoughtfully in the eye of educators. In realization of a missing opportunity that can bring a novel change in a smart learning environment, the author suggested this study as a proposal for further investigation of applying social networking sites in any level of education. The research investigated the learners’ perception of using social networking site Facebook for their learning. The results collected from 31 English senior students demonstrated a positive outcome for using such advanced form of communication in an academic setting: as an alternative for a conventional learning management system (LMS), Facebook justified itself to be capable of replacing such a complex system functionally even with more advantages in financial and interactive aspects. The research offers a new direction for the course designing process with the option to choose SNS as a flexible LMS for the teachers, despite that, teachers’ supervision on the activities of a SNS-operated learning system is needed to avoid any related concerns. One limit of the research is that the samples and scope of the research are bounded in a rather narrow area, of which 31 English senior students. From the finding of this research, further investigation will be able to explore more on the potential of SNS in academic settings.