Students’ Perception of Utilizing WhatsApp as an E-Learning Tool in English Teaching

Utilizing digital technology allows students and teachers to carry on learning even if they are in different places. Although there are many instant messaging applications, using of these applications for language learning has many advantages and disadvantages (Nurazizah, Frihatin, & Sugiarto, ۲۰۱۹). As a matter of fact, a wide variety of applications are used for online English language teaching, WhatsApp Application is one of them. Due to the presenter’s observation, several studies in different countries have conducted to investigate the students’ perception in using WhatsApp as an E-learning tool in English Language Teaching (ELT). However, to the best knowledge of the presenter; not many studies have targeted the Iranian students’ view on the using WhatsApp as an e-learning tool in ELT. The presenter investigates students’ perceptions on the using WhatsApp as an E-learning tool in ELT classes at Senior high schools in order to explore the benefits and challenges of students using WhatsApp to learn English. The study is designed as a qualitative research. In this research the participants are ۴۰ students of the tenth grade of the public Senior high schools which are selected based on the availability sampling technique. A close-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview are used for gathering data and data analysis is done by using Miles and Huberman flow model. The research finding shows that most of respondents stated learning English through WhatsApp application does not give maximum results. This presentation for the teachers can be useful as a medium for evaluating students’ perceptions on utilizing WhatsApp in online English teaching, for the students can be useful to provide motivation and good experience when they use the WhatsApp application for learning English, and for the researchers it can be a reference in increasing knowledge on students' perceptions in using WhatsApp application in ELT.