A Systematic Review of Social Media Integration to Teach Speaking

Abstract

The ubiquitous nature of social media (SM) makes it a very essential tool to use in the world of education, especially with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic which has led to a paradigm shift in the approaches used in the teaching and learning of English language skills. This review focuses on the use of social media as a medium of instruction to aid the acquisition of speaking skills, which many learners find extremely challenging and inhibiting. Thus, this systematic review investigates the integration of social media in the teaching and learning of speaking skills. To ensure the systematic analysis of the selected articles, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines were utilized. A total of 36 peer-reviewed journal articles from the year 2016 to 2021 were accessed from two databases: ERIC and Google Scholar. Prior to the start of the review, an inclusion and exclusion criteria selection process was conducted to ensure the focus of the review. Overall, the articles reviewed presented the claim that the integration of social media is seen as a positive inclusion for the teaching of speaking skills using various social media applications. Findings reveal that there are improvements in speaking skills, as well as confidence to speak and a decline in speaking anxiety. Teachers and educators can now make use of the various social media platforms such as Telegram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and others to provide learners with more practice that is not only restricted to the classroom but has moved beyond it.