THE EFFECT OF INTERACTION THROUGH SKYPE SOCIAL NETWORKS IN LEARNING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

Arwa AbdulAziz al-Dawood
Ms., Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia

Abstract
This study focused on using Skype as a social networking program to act as communication tool for individuals. It aimed to investigate the influence of using written interaction through Skype to facilitate learning English Language. This study combined the quantitative and qualitative methods to achieve research purposes. Quantitative data was established by using questionnaire. It designed to evaluate the student responses towards the class activity. Qualitative data attempted to analyze the conversations between students through screenshots. Thirty Korean nonnative speakers, both male and female, from Kangwon National University were randomly assigned into five groups, six students for each group. Participants attended two Skype chat sessions per week. It continued for two weeks. Every Skype chat activity spent about twenty minutes. The results of this study illustrated that Learners showed the tendency of using fragmented syntactic structures. They were able to use some of the discourse markers. In addition, a Skype Chat supported participants to recover common grammatical errors. According to SPSS analysis, there were a lot of effective aspects of using Skype for learning English. Some of them were: space of convenience and increasing the motivation between students by using the online technologies.

Keywords: communication tool, Skype, Learning English