Social Media Use and English Language Proficiency: Perspective of A Dhaka-Based Private University Students

Abstract

Social media platforms play a significant role among people from all over the world. During the global pandemic, people, especially university students, are dependent on different social media websites for communication and education purposes. Therefore, social media platforms and the use of the English language by the students are interconnected. Intending to determine the use of social media and English language proficiency perspectives of Dhaka-based private university students in the Bangladeshi context, the researcher used a qualitative data collection method where fifteen students within the age group of 18-26 years old from Dhaka based private universities, were interviewed. The interviews have taken over phone calls and internet conferencing platforms. In this research, the researcher particularly focused on three social networking sites (SNSs) that are prominent among university students; Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. The findings indicated that social media websites influence students so much in terms of learning and improving their reading and writing in English language proficiency. Additionally, the discussion from the findings also suggested, social networking sites (SNSs) can be a productive educational tool if the way of implementation of the English language can be organized and the instructors of university courses would maintain a rubric that encourages and motivates students to write more in the English language on social media platforms.