IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

AND LEARNING
SNEEHA ANNA JACOB
 Abstract
The purpose of the study is analyze the impact of
social media in English Language teaching and
learning. The social media has positive and negative
impacts. The study included practical applications of
social media in English language learning. Social
usage has its own up’s and downs.

Key Terms:
Social media
 INTRODUCTION
The language we use today is constantly transforming,
developing and adapting to the need of its users. This change
is inevitable and is a natural process to make the language
up-to date for contemporaries and also to satisfy the human
ambition for advancement. One of the most influencial
factors in shaping language is modern technological
equipment and the internet which is used on the electronic
devices by millions day by day.
Social networks totally play a significant role among network
users because these are the most popular pastime when
using the internet. They create a virtual world where people
can interact with each other. The world has established a
unique language system that applies various writing and
spelling modes and a distinct set of vocabulary and several
morphological, syntactic and paralinguistic factors.
People have now become part of an online community, their
language also immediately changes to achieve effective
communication. The latest developments and presence of
the web in our day to day life has changed the fundamental
of teaching learning process.
Social networks were created in the early 21st century in
order to help the users keep a close relationship with friends
and family members, transmit information, share photos and
watch videos on a virtual platform where the users can
interact with each other.
The effect of social media on vocabulary
Social media is a place where many new words are coined
in a number of words. Imitation of sounds can expand the
vocabulary used on the networks. Words like Haha or Lol can
reflect the human emotion of happiness. Huh is a sound to
show the breathing of a person when surprised.
Compounding can be said as one of the way it introduces
new words. Two or more lexemes that have different
meanings are combined to make a longer lexeme which
totally has a completely different meaning. Facebook- face
and book which implies that it is like a book of faces that is
able to store the memorable moments of a person’s life.
Other examples are podcast, snapchat, blogsphere etc.
Coining of words by error also happens in social networks.
This often happens when people make typos when writing on
their laptop, smartphones or other electronic devices.
Examples like Aight comes from word all right, Google comes
from word goggle etc. There are various words we use on
social media with a different connotation. The wall on
Facebook is not identical with the wall in houses. Adopting or
borrowing words can be a new phenomenon in the media
world. These words often originate from English.
According to an experiment by World Well Being Project
(WWBP) in 2013 to find out the most popular words used
and it consisted of 19 million facebook status updates by all
the participants. The people do not pay much attention to
their vocabulary usage. Since social networks provide a
relaxed atmosphere, the users easily reveal their opinion by
commenting on posts.
The effect of media in writing and grammar
The most common characteristic of online-based writing
is text speak. These mostly consists of acronyms, vowel-free
abbreviations, emoticons, symbols, pictograms, slang etc.
Internet users started to use text in chat rooms, blogs and
social media which popularized it. Examples of these forms
are 2DAY- today, ATB- all the best, F2F-face to face,THX-
thanks . There are various pros and cons to texting. Texts are
very short and often contain mistakes. Various usage of
English words are often misspelled and correct phonetic
usage does not take place. In other sense, text messaging
had contributed to the reading and spelling development in
many. These play an important role in the communication of
the 21st century.
Children encounter the internet and social media sites at
early time period when they hardly know how to read and
write properly. The children develop their curiosity by
exploring and using up all the possibilities offered by the
modern equipment. In school, a child slowly learns and
improves his/her writing by standardised grammar books or
readings from novels etc. The children of the next generation
will for sure hardly be able to distinguish between the
standard and non-standard writing. Their literacy is greatly
influenced by social media. After leaving school, it is mainly
the social media where the person practises what was learnt,
the writing and the reading.
Facebook ,You Tube, Whatsapp, Instagram, and Twitter etc
are some of the popular media sites. Developing learning
processes through integration of technologies to learning is a
trend to educators around the globe. Teachers now makes
use of technology in the English Language learning.
Social media is a great source of up-to-date, relevant
information such as blogs, news, wikis and lot more that are
written in English. These media provide spaces for
communication and thus allow everyone to practice on target
language. Social media provide platforms for language
learning. Obscene talks, vulgar contents and expletives are
some downsides of social media that are influencing the
people. Social media is playing a great role in promoting the
21st century skills. Social media is used by language learners
to have wide opportunities for direct access to native
speakers of English online.
The investigator had asked the students of the locality on
their opinion on usage of technology and they think that it is
necessary for them. Many adults commented that students
should limit the usage of technology. Everyone should use
according to what is good and bad.
Conclusion
The learners should be educated to choose the right kind of
media and to distinguish between what is right and fake
information. Social media has positive as well negative
impacts on how people speak and write. Overall new
vocabulary is coined in social media and it totally tricked
down to daily verbal conversations.
References
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
 https://www.academia.edu/
 http://www.academypublication.com/
 https://www.languagesevicesdirectdirect.co.uk/social-
media-changing-english-language/