The Contribution of Using Keypal as a Communication Tool for Secondary School EFL Students

A language is better learned when it is used. Therefore, giving the opportunity for learners to use English in their everyday lives may be helpful in order to increase their level of desire to learn English. With the advance in technology, the traditional pen and papers has naturally been replaced by keyboard and monitor screen. Key-pal is also known as students’ electronic communication with other students from around the world. Computer mediated interaction (CMI or CMC) or Computer-based communications (CBC) between learners of foreign languages and target language speakers or other foreign language learners are regarded as key friends. Therefore, research was carried out in order to find out the contributions of key-pal in the process of learning English as a foreign language with 7th grade learners in a Turkish secondary school. After five-month process, the perspectives and reflections of ten secondary-school-students participants about having a key-pal were also gathered. Three types of instruments were used for data collection. First, after an initial social media interaction with their pals, the participants were interviewed via a semi-structured interview to collect the necessary data. Thereafter, a further semi-structured interview was held with an English language teacher of the participants to gain a deeper understanding. Finally, notes of the researcher were used when necessary to supplement the findings. Due to the nature of the study, content analysis was used to describe the emerging themes. The classifications were shaped by the data shared by the participants, the English language teacher and the researcher. The content was then identified and the data from the various instruments was compared and cross referenced. The findings were verified against the theory outlined in the literature review in order to identify the similarities and differences about the effects of using key-pal in the language learning process.