1. Action Research GGGE6383 Materials for Teaching & Learning Name: Izyani Binti Mistar Matric No: P73940 Title: The Use of WhatsApp in Language Learning Activity for Negeri Sembilan Matriculation College Students

2. Outline...  Introduction  Aim (Research Objectives, Research Questions)  Literature Review  Methodology - procedure  Findings & Discussion  Conclusion

3. Introduction...  ICT gives a great impact on human lives where the use of mobile technology in education carries positive response to the learning development in most tertiary institutions. There is where WhatsApp application has becoming popular as a mobile learning concept and regards as one of the communication platforms since many students nowadays have their own smartphone.  WhatsApp is a Smartphone application for instant messaging.

4. Aim (Research Objective, Research Questions)  Research Objective: >The purpose of this research is to assess the use of WhatsApp application in teaching and learning of speaking activity where it can be done at students-paced-learning. It is also acted as classroom communication between teacher-student and student- student.  Research Questions: >“What is WhatsApp and its use in language learning?” >“How true the WhatsApp application could help my students in learning English language?”

5. Literature Review  Online communication in education system between students and teachers and between groups of students has become famous during last few years through various channels such as SMS, Email, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, MySpace, and recently WhatsApp. Those are known as online communication and each one of these tools has different characteristics that influence its suitability for learning purposes (Calvo, Arbiol & Iglesias, 2014). >Calvo, R., Arbiol, A., & Iglesias, A. (2014). Are all chats suitable for learning purposes? A study of the required characteristics. Procedia Computer Science, 27,251-260. Retrieved October 20, 2015 from http://www.jite.org/documents/Vol113/JITEEv13ResearchP.pdf http://www.jite.org/documents/Vol113/JITEEv13ResearchP.pdf

6. Methodology - Procedure  Data were gathered from 20 respondents from each practicum of D1AP2 and D3AP3 practicums via a set of questionnaires distributed for them to answer within 15 to 20 minutes. A qualitative data were collected from speak-your-idea activity after the implementation of WhatsApp application as one of the most effective teaching and learning tool outside of the classroom.  Apart from that, four half-structured interviews were administered to the students to obtain feedback regarding the use of WhatsApp and it is used to analyze and support the findings gathered from the questionnaires given earlier. It was just a casual structured conversation on the usefulness of WhatsApp application in teaching and learning activity.

7. Findings & Discussion It shows different kind of responses given by the participants in an activity posted by the teacher. The responses received were variety and in an active way for instance, text messaging, link shared, attaching infographics, voice and video recordings and many more. From those responses, it was clearly showed that students enjoyed the activity and would love to participate throughout the discussion. It proved the level of excitement in participation from the students in comparison to their involvement in a classroom discussion.

8. Findings & Discussion  I found that WhatsApp application was really useful and helpful to the teacher as well as to the students.  They managed to share their ideas and thoughts during the lesson in the classroom after I have conducted the discussion earlier in the WhatsApp group.  It showed they gained their confidence to speak English after they felt comfortable with the language whenever they discussed in the WhatsApp group.  The feedback or responses received by the students were also unexpected.  Some passive students were also gave their feedbacks and opinions.  Overall, it showed that they started to feel comfortable and confidence in expressing and speaking their ideas in text messaging form via WhatsApp application and later on made them shameless to voice out their ideas in the classroom.

9. Findings & Discussion

10. From the table above, it was clearly showed that 85.4% of the students agreed with the use of WhatsApp in their language learning process. This indicated their willingness to contribute and participate in sharing their ideas and thoughts towards the topic given by the teacher throughout the discussion held in the WhatsApp group. Moreover, they began to speak actively in the classroom whenever it involved the same or other topics to be discussed for the next lesson. It was a good improvement and upgrading their ability in speaking the language more confidently. Nevertheless, 10.8% indicated for neutral attitudes discovered among the students and only 3.8% of them were disagree with this learning tool. However, majority of the students could take this new learning experience positively and satisfied with its benefits too.

11. Conclusion  The results of this action research clearly demonstrate the usefulness of WhatsApp social networking in helping them learning the language better.  The mobile learning community helps students to create a learning community, to easily construct knowledge and to share it with other members of a WhatsApp group through instant messaging  Furthermore, we should not discount the interactions of students with their classmates through this online medium since the presence of the online mobile learning for instance, WhatsApp could help them a lot and also consider as an added value in the learning process. The lecturer in this situation can be acted as an instructor thus facilitates their WhatsApp conversations.  As for now, it is possible to say that WhatsApp enables students to co-operate and work as a team, an essential skill in the 21st century, which is not fully developed in the traditional class. The dialogue between students, whether spontaneous or directed by the teachers, creates an atmosphere of cooperation, solidarity and coming together to solve problems and deal with challenges.