MEDIA CONSUMING BEHAVIORS AND PERSPECTIVES TOWARDS LEARING ENGLISH THROUGH FACEBOOK AS A SECONDARY TEACHING/LEARNING RESOURCE FOR UNIVERSITY ENGLISH CURRICULUM

Abstract

ABSTRACT A rapidly growing body of research has accompanied the gradual rise of Facebook as a web tool on an educational sector. To address this issue, the researcher has conducted a study in order to find out whether this web tool is able to develop the teaching and learning process in accordance with students’ learning strategies in the present time. Therefore, this research focuses on the relationship between the media consuming behaviors and the perspectives towards learning English through Facebook as a secondary teaching/learning resource for university English curriculum. The research participants were first year students at Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna, Chiang Mai who enrolled in English for Communication course in the second semester of academic year 2014. There were a total of 80 student participants from 2 different sections. The research instrument was a questionnaire on media consuming behaviors and perspectives towards learning English through Facebook. The research results revealed that a number of online material accessed online through smart phones has been increasing steadily. It also showed that the majority of participants surfed the Internet on daily basis for mainly social networks for approximately 4-6 hours between the hours of 5:00 PM -12:00 PM, while Facebook being the most popular of all social networks. Moreover, the research participants were in agreement that Facebook is the easiest web tool to access, and that its daily use helps to stimulate the learners’ enthusiasm to learn and also increases the students’ confidence in using English in public. In short, there is a direct correlation between the learners’ media consuming behaviors and their perspectives towards learning English significantly through the use of Facebook as a secondary teaching/learning resource.Keywords : Facebook, Media consuming behaviors, perspectives, learning English, a secondary teaching/learning resource