WHATSAPP AS A TOOL FOR TEACHING SPEAKING

Background

Technology becomes one of the primary needs in this modern era. Most of
professions in any kind of fields apply technology in case of assisting their work. In
education aspect itself, Computers used as assisting tools by both teachers and students
and had beneficial uses in EFL classrooms. However, recent developments in
technology have shown that technology assistance is not limited to computers only.
Almost all the capabilities of computers have been fit into mobile devices, such as
mobile phones and tablets, which have increased access to technology in many
classrooms. Martin and Ertzberger (2013) studied the difference between the use of
computers and mobile phones in a classroom setting and found that students show more
enthusiasm towards mobile devices. Nowadays, it is well known as smartphone.

In EFL class, one of English skills that mostly practiced is speaking. This skill
belongs into the productive skills which lets students to express and share their ideas,
feeling, and thought. It has been taught since they were in junior level, at least they are
able to speak up when they have EFL class. In fact, most of students cannot
demonstrate their ability well even they are already in high school level. There are
some factors that make students become less on speaking : Lack of confidence and
motivation.

Majority of students lack of confidence because they choose to be silent rather

than be active in the classroom. They will be not focus while doing practice and they
ruin themselves at all. It is a general thing that every student face. As the result, what
the teacher expects to his or her students will not be achieved. On the other hand, they
do not have motivation to learn speaking since they have their own gadgets that they
bring from home. They choose to waste their time during the lesson through their
gadgets. This thing will be a serious problem and teachers fail to fulfill what the
students that actually want to master.

Therefore, there is the way how to attract students’ interest for learning
speaking. WhatsApp could be the alternative for this problem rather than other
application on a smartphone. WhatsApp Messenger is a smartphone- and web-based
instant message application that allows users to exchange information using a variety
of media including text, image, video, and audio messages (Church & de Oliveira,
2013). It is a free and easy to use application. It is not only used for sending messages,
but also used for voice-note messaging, voice call, and video call instead. As a free
messenger application, it works across multiple platforms like iPhone and Android
phones, and this app is being widely used among undergraduate students to send
multimedia messages like photos, videos, audios along with simple text messages
(Chan & Holosko, 2017)

There is also an emerging evidence that these Apps have a significant potential
to support the learning process and has substantial implications on pedagogies,
allowing direct access to lots of online resources, more focus on student's creativity,
autonomy, and responsibility on one's own learning (Ifenthaler & Schweinbenz, 2016).
Students can respond what their friends say without no doubt because they just need to
listen and speak through their gadget without thinking to be hesitate to express
something. In speaking class, students can discuss the chat room on the WhatsApp
group. The students can find the topic of a debate themselves or the teacher can also
give a suitable theme for learning activities. The teacher continues asking them to
record the voice, before sending to WhatsApp group.

There were some similar research that has been done by researchers by using
this method. The WhatsApp experience significantly impacted the students’ FLA levels
and they were able to lessen their anxieties somewhat and therefore they experienced
less anxiety after the experience (Han and Keskin, 2016). The students reported that
the experience gave them a chance to listen to their voice-recordings themselves and
have their recordings evaluated by an audience, thus enabling them to self-evaluate by
questioning their mistakes. In addition, the experience fostered their creativity in
constructing new sentences in speech and writing. WhatsApp
is beneficial to students’ knowledge of the language. The cheapness and potential of
this application bring us to the easy way to communicate (La Hanisi, Risdiany, Dwi
Utami, and Sulisworo : 2018). Some people ask questions, ask one another for help,
and the others share their solutions. The learning progress is furthered by the teacher’s
guidance, the creation of a supportive atmosphere, the creation of a learning
community, and the sharing of knowledge and inspiring dialogue.