Preparing Vocational High School Students’ 21st Century Skills Needed through Pair Work Strategy and YouTube Channel Integration

Abstract

There is no denying that the usage of digital media has extended throughout all parts of life as we enter the era of digital transformation. YouTube is the social media app on Android phones that people use the most, both in terms of total time and average time per user. Predicted outcomes of teaching and learning English with the use of YouTube are considered positive. This research aimed to get empirical evidence of the effect of a pair work strategy integrated with YouTube channels in increasing students’ speaking performance. This study applied a quasi-experimental design. The population of this research was the tenth-grade students at a State Vocational High School in Indonesia. There were 64 students who participated in this study. The instrument used in this research was the speaking test. A paired sample t-test was conducted to evaluate the impact of the intervention on students’ speaking performance. There was statistically significant improvement on students speaking score from Time 1 (M = 69, 41, SD = 5.988) to Time 2 (M = 86.16, SD = 4.444), t(31) = 15.516,$P<0.0005$. The eta squares statistic (eta squared = 0.886) indicated a large effect size. An independent sample t-test was also conducted to compare the score between experimental and control groups. The result indicated that there was significant difference in score between experimental (M = 86.16, SD = 4.444) and Control group (M = 78.50, SD = 42.65; t(62) = 7.031,$p=0.001$). The magnitude of the difference in the means was large (eta squared = 0.443). It indicated that 44.3% of students’ speaking score was influenced by the integration of paired work strategies and YouTube channels.