The Impact of social media “Tik Tok” on The Students’ English Listening

Ability
Salma Alviatun Ni’mah
English Education Department
Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teacher Training
State Institute of Islamic Studies Ponorogo
Email: alviatunsalma9@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Learning English as language is a must for the new generation people. In this new era
language learning can be done in various ways, such as social media. Social media is known
to be a virtual place for students to hang out. One virtual place called Tiktok is made into
people heart. Tiktok is known to had various contents which majorly use English as the
communique. Then, it features are playing a big role for the content making and consuming,
and considered to be useful for the students. The method used is descriptive qualitative by using
library research as data collection. Based on the research some students are feeling that
watching Tiktok is beneficial for them. It can indirectly increase their listening ability which is
essential in English language learning. Therefore, Tiktok is really impacted in improving the
students’ English listening ability.

Kata Kunci: Tiktok, Listening, Influence

A. INTRODUCTION
English nowadays, we live in a new era that is called era 2.0 where everything
is based on modernization. English as the proven international language is essential for
the society as the way to communicate. English, which used as the international
language now is needed in every international relation. To prepare our generation for
the new era, we must master the English through various education including formal
and nonformal courses such as schools, or extracurricular activities.1
Education is achieved through teaching and learning. Teacher and students
should learn the way to adapt with the new eras 2.0. Through a consistent learning, it

1
Emsi Feni SP Br. Perangin-angin, et. al, “Improving student’s listening skills using Tiktok at SMP SWASTA
Amalyatul Huda medan.” Jurnal Ilmiah Profesi Pendidikan, vol. 6 No. 4 (2021) pp: 650
 will improve social interaction and communication between the teacher and the
students, and also between the students themselves. Therefore, language learning in this
case is English can be achieved by learning consistently, and improving interaction
between the learners.
English is learned by recognizing four different components. They are listening,
reading, writing, and speaking. These components are needed in developing students’
communication abilities. These four components are entangled together but, can be
discussed individually. One of the earliest abilities that is important for communication
is listening ability.
Listening ability, one of the abilities to receive is a communication technique
where listeners can understand, interpret and evaluate what they listen. By minimizing
problem, promoting cooperation and understanding. Active listening can help the
students improve their communication and relationships.2 Listening itself is a creative
skill. It needed us to comprehend by the sound through our ears and then taking the raw
words that was spoken while arranging it into a set of understandable sentence in our
brain.3 The fact that it is the major ability in learning English, unfortunately listening is
still known as a hard skill to learn by the students. This can be found from many
students’ achievements where they got low scores on listening rather than reading or
writing. By that, this ability should be reconsidered, improved and applied in the
classroom. There are some old ways to help improving students’ listening ability,
mostly by CDs, DVDs, Radio, and Television, but those are considered as downsides
by our society now where people are tended to use online application.
Learning media is a tool to improve the process of teacher and student
relationship. Student interaction with the environment and as a teaching aid can assist.
The use of teaching methods with a suitable learning to will helps educators facilitate
the learning process and add insights sent to students.4 Therefore, these learning media
should be used wisely by both of them.
Social media as one of the media that can be used as a learning facilitiy. In
today’s technologically advanced era, the use of social media is very important. It is

2
ibid, 650
3
Rhenovia Rahmawati, “THE IMPACT OF USING TIKTOK ON THE STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILL AT THE
10th GRADE OF SMK PGRI 3 KEDIRI”, Bachelor thesis. Faculty of Teacher Training and Education University
of Nusantara PGRI Kediri, Kediri. (2022), pp.13
4
Restu, Y. H. u, AND Yulia Anggraini, “Proceeding of the 3rd International Conference on Islamic Studies
(ICIS). Ponorogo; International Conference on Islamic Studies (ICIS).”, Bachelor thesis, Vol 3 (2022), pp. 178
 used to introduce yourself, interact, share information with people and build
relationships between users in cyberspace.5 Social medias can be integrated towards the
new generation for learning medium, because their daily life that mostly engaged with
it. There are many social media that can be used as learning, such as You-tube,
Instagram, Tiktok, and Whatsapp.
One of them is Tiktok which is become the most popular media in the world.
Tiktok is an audio-visual media, which the media can be seen and heard. It provides a
various special and unique effects to create a wonderful short video. it was launched in
2016 and still becoming the number one of social media in the world.
Tiktok provides various kinds a video content which can be merge with many
educational issues. Some of the people that used Tiktok which are called Tiktokers. Pour
various creative videos in purpose to educate another. Furthermore, students which is
already engaged in Tiktok could also learn many lessons from these videos.
One of the useful things from Tiktok is the audio videos. Some videos are made
with the attention to be watch and listen by others. It can be found massively in this
platform. By that many students will indirectly learn how to listen well to know the
content inside the video. In short, Tiktok has an influential effect for learners especially
English learner in improving there listening ability.
Therefore, this study will aim on how the Tiktok is used as a learning media and
how it influenced the students’ listening ability. Based on this, the researcher is
interested to conduct research entitled “The Impact of Social Medias “Tik Tok” on The
Students’ English Listening Ability”.6
B. METHODS
In this research., the researcher used a qualitative approach. The qualitative
approach is descriptive research which tends to use analysis. In this study, the researcher
tries to examine the impact of Tiktok as The Impact of Social Medias “Tik Tok” on The
Students’ English Listening Ability. The type of this research is the category of Library
Research which is one of the studies that use data collection techniques used, namely
by reviewing books, notes, literature, or even with various reports that are related to the
problem to be solved. So, this Library Research is based on data from research journals,

5
Ibid. 179
6
Novitasari, and Ainul Adda,” Students’ perception toward the use of Tiktok videos for learning English.
International Social Sciences and Humanities, vol. 2 No. 1 (2022) pp. 567
 book, and other sources relevant to the use of Tiktok as a media to support learning.7
The procedure of this method is done simply by reviewing the research study, and
describe the features of Tiktok, then analyzing which feature that has the impact in
students’ listening ability.
C. DISCUSSION
Listening Ability
Listening is one of ability that we had learned since childhood. It is the part of
communication, and to interact with others. In listening, people need to understand,
interpretate, evaluate, and respond in a communication. In English language learning,
listening is the first and one of the major abilities. It is an active ability where the people
are needed to always engaging on what they hear. It is not only matter of hearing, but
it included with many stages. 8
In most cases, listening activities are also required in academic contexts.
However, students are still having problem when learning this listening ability. Those
problems are:
1) Students cannot control the speaking rate of the speaker. It is a problem when
the spoken message that already conveys a lost message before you understand
it. In at the same time understand the message it conveys.
2) Students do not have the opportunity to ask the speaker to repeat their speech.
Or clarify the message being conveyed. For example, listening to the radio or
watching television.
3) Limits so that students can understand clearly. Students cannot understand the
content of the text id the vocabulary is large the student asked. Moreover, it
makes thembored and annoyed failure of.
4) Students need to recognize and understand the “signals emitted by the speaker.”
Because the students misunderstood the content of the message they received.
5) The content of the message is incorrect due to an error in the interpretation of
the received message. The message sent is accepted by the students or has
another meaning.
6) It is hard to focus and concentrate in a very noisy environment and so on.

7
Restu, Y. H. u, AND Yulia Anggraini, “Proceeding of the 3rd International Conference on Islamic Studies
(ICIS). Ponorogo; International Conference on Islamic Studies (ICIS).”, Bachelor thesis, Vol 3 (2022), pp. 179
8
Rhenovia Rahmawati, “THE IMPACT OF USING TIKTOK ON THE STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILL AT THE
10th GRADE OF SMK PGRI 3 KEDIRI”, Bachelor thesis. Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
University of Nusantara PGRI Kediri, Kediri. (2022) pp. 14
 7) Concerns over differences in teacher usage and teaching materials audio or
materials heard by native speakers.9
Social Media
Social Media is a digital technology which facilitate the people to share their
ideas, and information through virtual networks, and where the people can build their
communities. People nowadays refer social media as websites and applications which
is designed to allow them share their contents quickly, and efficiently.10 Social media
nowadays is becoming a part of human life where their social interaction and
communication is done not only in real-life, but also in social media’s virtual space. In
addition, social media has become a medium for making promotion, making relation
between people, communities, also some brands, in a publicly online environment.
In education, social media is used variously. Some software tools, applications
and free websites are used to enhance the learning programs, communication, and also
engagement of the people in education.11 As the education is higher, the need of social
media is also risen up. In addition, social media provides more opportunities for the
students in developing and maintain their personal learning activities. To be said, social
media is a place for students controlling their own learning process in an online
platform.
Nowadays, the need of social media as it become a habit activity for our society
has major advantage for the students. As a part of students’ social life, it is an attractive
media, and can motivate them to be more participative in learning. At second hand it
seemed to be a problem having students too much engaging in virtual space rather than
real-life. However, if it guided and managed well, it can be a supportive media for
students to learn.
Moreover, social media also has major role in English language learning. The
opportunities that social media provides can be used to improve learners’ abilities in
English. These abilities such as, listening ability, speaking ability, as well as reading
ability, and writing ability, is essential in the English language learning. To achieve that,
students’ can be directly search for the lesson or even indirectly learn from the vast
contents available in social media.

9
Ibid, 14
10
Debbie Melina Sari Sihombing, “The Effect Of Tiktok Social Media Into Students Listening Achievement Of
Eight Grade At Smp Negeri 9 Binjai”, thesis, Universitas HKBP Nommensen Medan, (2021), pp. 15
11
Ibid, 15
 The contents of social media are divided into several sites, or applications. This
is because some sites are tended to focus on one concept and material. Some examples
for those are, Spotify application that focuses on songs and music, Pinterest that focused
on picture and art, etc. However, in this new generation, the applications can be focused
on more content than usual. For example: Tiktok, and Instagram which can be used to
post pictures, videos, songs, and even chatting with other people. By that this research
will focus on one of them which is Tiktok, which is known to be having more
advantages than Instagram.
Tiktok
Tiktok application is a social networking and music video platform from China
that has been launched in early September 2016. Tiktok gives users access to the
creation to their short tracks video. Faster, easier community reviewed digital work to
accept, and more interesting. The Tiktok is used to create and share short music,
comedy, lip sync, talent, recreation place, and other videos. This application has
surpassed all others in terms of popularity in 2019. The program is used by people of
all ages utilize it, although the majority are teens. Because of it is unique content and
popular among young and old people.12
The majority of Tiktok users are also young people, school age or productive
age. This application is on the top because it is attractive, so it’s an iconic for the new
generation. Students liked to use Tiktok application because it can make them happy
when they are bored, along with the user-friendly interactive content design and
production model can be handy when used in learning. It mostly influenced in every
daily basis for most people in this era. Tiktok is mostly programmed using English, the
content itself has many English language in it. Therefore it is a great concept to learn
English as language
There are some factors that influences the users to use Tiktok. The two major
factors mainly internal factors and external factors. Internal factors are dealing with
feelings, attitudes, attention, personal characteristic, interest, motivation, and etc.
meanwhile, External factors are dealing with family background, information that is
obtained, knowledge, novelty, surrounding needs and etc.13

12
Rhenovia Rahmawati, “THE IMPACT OF USING TIKTOK ON THE STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILL AT
THE 10th GRADE OF SMK PGRI 3 KEDIRI”, Bachelor thesis. Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
University of Nusantara PGRI Kediri, Kediri. (2022) pp. 17
13
Debbie Melina Sari Sihombing, “The Effect Of Tiktok Social Media Into Students Listening Achievement Of
Eight Grade At Smp Negeri 9 Binjai”, thesis, Universitas HKBP Nommensen Medan, (2021), pp. 18
 1) Internal Factors
Internal factors are factors that came within the individual itself. One of
them is feelings. Feeling is experienced within somebody and is subjective.
Someone will feel happy, sad, or emotional towards Tiktok. If someone doesn’t
feel pleasured, they will not use it. According to W. Wunndt in Ahmadi feelings
are not just viewed or experienced by the person as a sensation of pleasure or
dissatisfaction, but may be perceived from a variety of perspectives. So,
according to W. Wundt, the use of this Tiktok application may be demonstrated
not just through his. But it may also be observed in his action.14
With this Tiktok application, everyone can do it differently with the
situation. A person's emotional attitude toward a particular human group, racial
group, or culture a biased person, unlike a group. If someone has a good
prejudice. If you use Tiktok application, there is no downside to using this
Tiktok application. Conversely, if someone find it find it difficult to use the
Tiktok application, that’s okay.
The person also does not want to use the Tiktok. Internal factors are very
influential factors oppose the use of the Tiktok. Internal factors are also called
learning processes use of social media, including use of the Tiktok application.
So, we use social media like Tiktok app it’s not only entertainment, but also
helps you learn how to interact with new people. The Tiktok app also allows
everyone to be more creative. Of a negative factor in using Tiktok app can bring
a feeling of laziness to anyone and forget all the work that had to do.
2) External Factors
In the Tiktok app, people get information through videos and others
forms of sharing by being recorded in this way. The user because social media
creates information, this information becomes your social media identity.
Express your identity, create content, and conduct informed interactions. So,
information is very important and it also affects your use of the Tiktok app.
People who don’t get information about Tiktok may not know Tiktok
app to become its user. Therefore, information is very important when using
Tiktok app. Impact of social media as part of misinformation media, it means

14
Ibid, 18
 that it can affect people’s knowledge. Information can affect people his
knowledge of social media such as Tiktok app. 15
Besides some factors that Tiktok that make the users interest in using it on daily
basis. Aside from those factors there are also some characteristics of Tiktok that suitable
for students to learn language especially English. These features are:
No Features Functions

1 Live video Watch and listen to another people content in real

time

2 For You Short videos for personal interests

3 Background sound Music and audio from Tiktok

4 Share Share any video

5 Collaboration Collaborate with other Tiktok application users

From the description above, it can be concluded that Tiktok really affects the
students’ language learning ability, in this research is focuses on listening. This can be
analyzed by the Live video where both users engaged in a virtual interaction and
communication. It impacted the students’ listening ability to be in a conversation. Next,
For You features let the students watch random video based on their personal interest
which can be a medium for them to practice their listening abilities too. Some
background sound of Tiktok is made in English. Many songs, or sound effect is spoken
in English. By that it will indirectly help the students to practice their listening ability.
More, the students could also share some interesting videos with their friends using
share, and collaborate with them.
According to some students’ experience, they used the Tiktok to search useful
content to increase there language learning ability. In this occasion listening ability.
They might used Tiktok for having fun, watching funny videos, international news,
international make up tutorial and some English contents, but by doing that they are
indirectly learning English as well as listen practice their listening.
Based on the explanation above, Tiktok as a social media can impact the
students’ learning through their gadgets16. Not only engaging them with many

15
Ibid, 19
16
Ibid, 20
 interesting contents that students personally liked, but it also helps them to not easily
get bored with old traditional learning activities. More than that, it made them more to
be more socialize with others through online medium which is fit with the new era.
Therefore, Tiktok is impacting the students’ language learning on listening ability
massively through its users and guided contents.

D. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, based on the discussion it is shown that Tiktok is known to be the
most famous around students in this new era, so it is popular among students. Aside
from its vast contents, it still can be used for language practice. It is also proven by the
useful features from Tiktok which are related to some listening practice activities. In
short, the use of Tiktok by students is really impacted their English language learning
especially listening ability, and hopefully it will be one of effective and fun ways to
learn language.
 E. REFERENCES

Br Perangin angin, E. F., Silaban, M. C., & Purba, R. (2021). Improving student’s listening
skills using Tiktok at SMP SWASTA Amalyatul Huda medan. Jurnal Ilmiah Profesi
Pendidikan, 6(4), 650–656. https://doi.org/10.29303/jipp.v6i4.312

Rahmawati, R. (2022). THE IMPACT OF USING TIKTOK ON THE STUDENTS’

LISTENING SKILL AT THE 10th GRADE OF SMK PGRI 3 KEDIRI (thesis). Faculty
of Teacher Training and Education University of Nusantara PGRI Kediri, Kediri.

Sihombing, D. M. S. (2021). THE EFFECT OF TIKTOK SOCIAL MEDIA INTO STUDENTS

LISTENING ACHIEVEMENT OF EIGHT GRADE AT SMP NEGERI 9 BINJAI (thesis).
Universitas HKBP Nommensen, Medan.

Syamsiani, M., & Munfangati, R. (2022). Students’ perception toward the use of Tiktok
videos for learning English. International Social Sciences and Humanities, 2(1), 324–
329. https://doi.org/10.32528/issh.v2i1.150

Umah, R. Y. H., & Anggraini, Y. (2022). Proceeding of the 3rd International Conference on
Islamic Studies (ICIS). In Potential Utilization of Tiktok as Learning Support Media in
Elementary School (Vol. 3, Ser. 2022, pp. 178–185). Ponorogo; International
Conference on Islamic Studies (ICIS).