Investigating the Effect and Students' Perceptions of Using Instagram as a Writing Teaching Tool in Saudi EFL Classrooms

Social media platforms have gained exceptional popularity, especially in the last ten years, and have subsequently become important to current human lifestyle. Instagram (IG) is among the most popular social media platforms, and is used by millions of people every day, especially young adults. Given this significance, social media platforms have been used for educational purposes, too. Thus, this study aims at exploring the perceptions of female high school students about the potential of utilizing IG as a writing teaching tool. Using the Mixed Method Design, thirty-five high school female students learning English as a foreign language were included in the survey with the same students taking part in the experimental part of the study designed to explore the impact of IG on students’ language learning processes. Seven students from the same experimental group were also interviewed for their opinions about IG use. After conducting quantitative and qualitative analyses, the findings show that IG is the most frequently used social media platform among the participants and that they favor it for educational and language learning purposes, especially as a writing teaching tool. Additionally, it was found that IG had a positive impact on the students’ language learning based on their achievement scores. Thus, it is concluded that it can be used to enhance the learning of English supplementary to formal teaching by exposing the students to writing the English language while they are using this platform as part of their everyday practice.