Investigating English Fluency: YouTube's Impact on Speaking Skills for ESL Learners in Malaysian Higher Education
Sheiladevi Sukumaran
Tian Meng Xuan
Liqiaoling
This study explores the perspectives of Malaysian higher education ESL students on using YouTube to enhance their English proficiency. It investigates the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating YouTube into university settings and its impact on students' speaking skills. After surveying a diverse sample of Malaysian college students through a quantitative approach, this research reveals that YouTube provides authentic and informative content, making it a valuable resource for improving speaking skills due to its flexibility, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness. A total of 50 university students completed the survey questions. A Google Form survey was used as the study instrument, an open-ended survey with 0.80 reliability and 0.36 error variance. The findings indicate that using YouTube as part of an English language instruction program has the potential to provide students with exposure to learning and enhance their English-speaking skills in ways that fit their learning methods while simultaneously ensuring that students are learning in an environment that includes audio-visual aids to assist them in learning and possessing their speaking skills more effectively. This study also shows no significant differences between students enrolled in foundation programs, diploma programs, undergraduate programs, and master's degree or doctoral degree programs, which indicates that all of these student groups have a similar perception of the use of YouTube videos. In addition to this, several students expressed their concerns over the inadequacy of YouTube videos as a source of information for the development of English-speaking skills via the responses they provided. The novelty of this study emphasized the importance of integrating technological resources like YouTube into educational institutions to promote comprehensive language learning, offering valuable insights for educators in adapting to the evolving digital landscape.
Keywords:English language, YouTube, Videos, Educational technology, Higher education
