Pedagogy potential of social media in Saudi Arabia curricula: students' and teachers' perceptions and practices

Social media tools are commonly used in everyday life in the 21st century. Social media has influenced many areas in our lives including education. Social media is widely researched in the area of English as a foreign language (EFL). Research into social media as a supportive tool in the curriculum has been reported with different perspectives. Some scholars (Mohammed et al., 2023; Lashari et al., 2023) have found it useful in improving the performance of English language learners and others have indicated (Nkhi, 2023; Asafo-Adjei, 2023) negative impacts of integrating social media in EFL classrooms.

The present doctoral research aimed at exploring the perceptions and practices of teachers and students at 3rd level education towards using social media as a tool in curricula in Saudi Arabia. This research targeted learners and teachers of EFL in Saudi Arabia. The study investigation included the student use of social media, the student’s perceptions of social media, teacher’s use of social media and the teacher’s perceptions surrounding social media. Moreover, this research suggested several practices that can be useful for teachers and learners of EFL.

A mixed method approach of quantitative and qualitative approaches was adopted to collect the data for the study using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews for the two targeted groups, teachers and students. These tools are used to explore the perceptions and attitudes of the participants towards using social media as a tool in EFL classrooms. The data were analysed using statistical analysis for the quantitative data and thematic analysis for the qualitative data. Overall, the results of the research indicated that using social media in curricula appeal to both teachers and students with concerns regarding distraction that social media may cause and the possibility to find appropriate approaches that can be adopted to implement social media in EFL classrooms.