The use of social media in the teaching and learning of English: A systematic review of the research landscape in Saudi Arabia (2020-2022)

Abstract

Social media continues to play a crucial role in many aspects of life, including education. In addition to providing platforms for communication, social media has also given English language teachers and learners a greater opportunity to leverage it for teaching and learning purposes in foreign language settings. Yet, there is little concrete information is available on how social media can support teaching and learning. In fact, the research on social media use tends to focus on learners' attitudes and perceptions, as opposed to how it is used. Hence, taking the context of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the present systematic review attempts to document the current research landscape on the use of social media in foreign language classrooms. A total of 11 studies that have been published in between 2020 and 2022 are collected and thematically analysed. The studies were selected based on a set of criteria that are set for them to be included for analysis. Findings have generally shown that most of the articles that investigated the use of social media utilized quantitative research paradigm through the technique of survey distributed to targeted samples. Most of the samples are stakeholders at the education institutions in the Kingdom. In addition, the findings also confirmed that most studies to date are only concerned with the attitudes or perceptions of using social media in teaching and learning. This therefore leads to a huge gap on other aspects such as pedagogical technique or the outcomes of integrating social media into the learning process.