Students’ perception of online communication language learning through Instagram

The use of Social Media has become pervasive. As an educator, this might facilitate the learning experiences, especially for second language learning. Bring that issues, this study intended to delve into students' perception regarding their experience in using mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) tools especially Instagram for speaking activity in English for Specific Purposes class. Besides, this study also explored students' opinions regarding the use of Instagram for language learning purposes. Two sets of questionnaires were distributed and analyzed. The result indicated that the participants expressed a positive perception of the use of Instagram for learning language purposes. The finding revealed that, among the participants, Instagram is the most popular social media. The positive students’ perception is that learning through Instagram is effective because it provides a new way of learning language and it accelerates interactive vocabulary enrichment. DOI: 10.26905/enjourme.v5i2.5202


Introduction
The development of technology brings us to the era of teaching and learning using the innovative application. In language learning, the learning facilitated by the mobile device is called Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) (Chaka in Alsharidi, 2018). The benefit of the mobile device is that it is flexible and broadly use (Chinnery, 2006). Thus, it facilitates the learning experience anytime and anywhere. Further, in the distance learning context, the use of communication media is the key importance for successful teaching and learning (Fahmi, 2020). Needless to say, the mobile learning experience offers the convenience of distance or online learning. Thompson (2015) mention "social media represents tools that may be used to store and deliver information and content disseminated through social interactions or networks" (p.26). Examples of social media are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. However, since the first social media has been launched, social media platforms keep expanding, and they keep improving and surely there will be new platforms in the future.
On the contrary, research also mentioned the drawbacks of the use social media. The negative effect of using social media, especially WhatsApp, is the time commodification of its users (Setiyaningsih & Jatmikowati, 2019). While some educators resist that the use of social media would distract students' focus on teaching-learning, others oppose that using social media as learning tools is beneficial since it can provide an authentic environment for the students (Alsharidi, 2018). Thus, it can provide opportunities for them to interact using the target language (Gonulal, 2019).
Further, the high popularity of Social Media leads educators to use social media as a teaching platform. In second and foreign language studies, many studies investigated the use of social media as an instructional strategy in formal education. For example, Chawinga (2017) analyzed students' posts on Twitter and blog, and the result revealed that using this strategy increased students' interaction with their classmates and lecturer. Besides, this strategy also beneficial since it tended to students' center activity. Another study conducted by Gonulal (2019) observed the use of Instagram for informal language learning. The study indicated that using this social media platform was an effective way of improving the vocabulary and communication skills of the students. Different from those previous researches, this study focuses on students' perception of their experience after using Instagram for their speaking activity. Other than that, this study also tries to explore students' opinions regarding the use of Instagram for language learning purposes. To fill this gap, thus the objectives of the study are addressed to analyze students' attitudes on: 1) their experiences in using Instagram for language learning purposes; and 2) the use of Instagram for language learning purposes.

Methods
In this study, the questionnaires were the main instrument used to collect the data. There were two sets of questionnaires used. The first one was a questionnaire to observe students' perceptions after using Instagram to post their speaking videos. Given a certain topic, 80 students were asked to post a speaking video on Instagram. Then, the researchers asked them to fill the online survey consisting of eight Likert-scale items. These questions were adapted to a five-point scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The second questionnaire was intended to explore students' attitudes regarding the use of Instagram for language learning purposes. For this questionnaire, 148 students, who never received any specific assignment to post their work in their English class, were involved in filling the online survey. The questionnaire, which consists of seven items, was in form of a 5 Likert-scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Both of the questionnaires were adapted from Erarslan's (2019) study. To this end, for the study both the questionnaires were delivered using the Indonesian language.
All the participants from both surveys were English as Specific Purposes students who study in a private university in Malang, Indonesia, and their ages ranged from 17 to 33. Table 1 presents the participants' profile. The result of these questionnaires was then analyzed to resolve the participants' attitudes toward the use of Instagram for learning the language in a formal class. The SPSS software was used to provide a descriptive analysis of the questionnaire.

3.
Result and discussion Table 2 presents the result demographic part that contains participants' personal information regarding the use of social media. The data clearly depicts that all of the participants are have social media account and the majority of them (98.8%) have an Instagram account. Thus, the most popular social media among the participants of this study was Instagram followed by Facebook (63.7%), YouTube (57.5%), TikTok (52.5%). In responding to the time spent on social media used in a day, 25 (31.25%) of the participants were using social media in 3-4 hours. Other, 23 students (28.75%) were spent 5-6 hours a day and 18 (22.5%) students were using social media for 7 or more hours in a day. Compared to those, the two lowest times spent, less than 1 hour and 1-2 hours, there were only 3 and 11 participants respectively.

|190 |
EnJourMe (English Journal of Merdeka): Culture, Language, and Teaching of English Vol. 5, No. 2, Desember 2020, pp. 188-195 Table 3 depicts the means and standard deviations for the eight items in the questionnaire. The respondents reported their highest positive attitude toward item 7 (mean=3.7625) that examined their perception of "Using Instagram offers a new way for me to practice my English speaking". On the other hand, the lowest mean rank was announced as item 6 (3.2875) that examined their opinion of "I believe using Instagram helps me speak in English better". Despites that, the responses were found to be heterogeneous in terms of their attitudes toward item 5 (SD=1.08965304) that questioned, "I feel no pressure in making mistakes on Instagram". On the contrary, students were homogenous in responding "I feel comfortable using Instagram for speaking in English" or item 1 (SD=.85110223).

Students' attitudes toward the use of Instagram for language learning purposes
To deal with the second questionnaire that aiming to affirm participants' attitudes toward Instagram for language learning purposes, 148 students responded to the online questionnaire. Table  4 shows the result of the demographic part of participants' information regarding their perception about learning the language on Instagram. Based on the data, all the participants have social media. In addition, social media that the most chosen by the participants was Instagram with 147 (99.3%)

Students' perception of online communication language learning through Instagram Malikhatul Lailiyah, Lian Agustina Setiyaningsih
| 192 | participants followed by YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, and LinkedIn with 97 (65.5%), 89 (60.1%), 85 (57.4%), 75 (50.7%), and 13 (8.8%) respectively. In responding to the time spent on social media in a day, the highest rank was 3-4 hours with 48 or 32.4% of the participants, while only 2 (1.4%) students were spent less than 1 hour a day on social media.  Table 5 presents the means and standard deviations for the seven items in the questionnaire. The result indicated item 2 that examined participants' perception of "I feel that when I use Instagram, it helps me learn English language structures" as the strongest viewpoints. On the contrary, item 3 that observed participants' opinion of "I feel no pressure when I make mistakes on Instagram" was the weaknesses viewpoints. Despite this, the responses were found to be heterogeneous in terms of their attitudes toward item 3 (SD=1,23306646). On the other hand, students were homogenous in responding to item 5 "I think that Instagram is a natural place in which to practice English because it provides meaningful interaction" (SD=.85110223).  Vol. 5, No. 2, Desember 2020, pp. 188-195

Discussion
Returning to the result of demographics from the responses of the participants, it showed that all of the participants were social media users. Besides, from both questionnaires, Instagram was the most popular social media platform. In terms of participants' daily use of social media, the average use was 3 up to 4 hours a day. Interestingly, only a few participants claimed that they used social media for less than an hour a day. This indicates that social media is an important aspect of their daily life. As mentioned by Alsharidi (2018) e-learning environment, online learning, and social media platforms were a result of the modern invention that create new social interaction-oriented language learning. Thus, it can support the idea that using social media is beneficial for teaching and learning since the participant was familiar with this.
Analysis of the first questionnaire revealed that the mean score of all the items was above the average. This is indicated that participants showed positive responses to the items. The strongest response was in attitudes of their belief that Instagram was offering a new way of practicing their English speaking. This result was in line with Gonulal (2019) that mentioned the suitability of Instagram for continual English language learning. Besides, the participants feel comfortable and feel no pressure when using Instagram to post their speaking activity. Purvis et al. (2020) claimed in their study that the use of social media gains students' confidence. Another positive viewpoint from the first questionnaire was students agree that Instagram promotes their motivation in learning English. This inclination among the participants is in line with the other social media studies of English language learning, such as Sari and Wahyudin (2019) study.
Relating to motivation, many studies mentioned the importance of motivation in influencing students' attitudes and learning behaviours (Rienties et al., 2009). To bring this issue, increasing students' motivation in the language classroom is essential. Further, many strategies are proposed to improve students' motivation in the language class, such as using pre-reading activities (Lailiyah et al., 2019) in reading class, using guided conversation (Romadhon & Qurohman, 2019) in speaking class, and using Total Physical Response (Lutviana & Mafulah, 2018) in vocabulary mastery. To add more, Lailiyah (2016) also mentioned the positive effect of Content and Language Integrated Learning on the students' enthusiasm and motivation. In e-learning environment, study by Triono and Setiyaningsih (2019) stated that learning through website content is an effective method.
The result from the second questionnaire showed that students felt that using Instagram develop their understanding of language structure and vocabulary. Gonulal (2019) discussed that Instagram offers a contextual text with visual data, thus it can be a good platform to learn vocabulary. Conversely, it is also revealed that participants prefer to use Instagram compared to other social media to interact with others. Albeit the fact that they comfortable using Instagram, they show a negative response in answering that no one judged their mistakes on Instagram. Purvis et al. (2020) mentioned in their study that through the use of social media, students tend to be a lack empathy for those who face obstacles.

Conclusion and Suggestion
The present exploratory study investigated a group of Indonesian EFL learners' attitudes on their opinion about their experience of using Instagram for learning language purposes. Analysis of the result revealed that students showed positive attitudes towards the use of social media especially Instagram for language learning. Students' perception about online communication language learning are more dominant in the aspect of the new method that offering simplicity. In addition, the concept of learning through Instagram has the advantage of accelerating vocabulary enrichment.
Future studies may explore the impact of the use of Instagram for EFL students on their speaking ability. It is suggested that a similar study with a larger sample of participants might give a better perspective. To add more, it is also necessary to broaden the subject of the study, since this study only focuses on higher students majoring in Business, Engineering, and Social sciences.