Abstract—With their audio-visual capacity, linguistic and
non-linguistic content, WhatsApp group video calls appear to
have great potential for encouraging EFL learners' speaking
development. However, the literature has yet to establish the
degree to which WhatsApp group video calls promote English
learning motivation and self-efficacy, reduce English speaking
anxiety, authentic self-assessment, or urge teachers and students
to improve their digital literacy. Therefore, this study aims to
analyze the effect of using WhatsApp group video calls to
improve students' speaking skills and reveal the extent of this
media's impact on student learning. The pre-/post-test, the
two-group quantitative explanatory research design was
undertaken, featuring one hundred and nineteen students from
four classes. A test and questionnaires were used for data
collection, and then data were analyzed by using SPSS 24.0. The
findings reveal that WhatsApp group video calls have been
helpful for increasing learners’ speaking competence during the
COVID-19 pandemic and promoting students' English speaking
motivation. With all these advantages in mind, this study
suggests that ESL/EFL speaking instructors use WhatsApp
group video calls in their distance or online English speaking
classes.
Index Terms—Audio-visual, COVID-19, speaking
competence, teaching, WhatsApp, video calls.
Sebastianus Menggo, Yosefina Helenora Jem, Stanislaus Guna, and
Raimundus Beda are with English Education Program, Universitas Katolik
Indonesia Santu Paulus Ruteng, Indonesia.
*Correspondence: sebastian.pradana@gmail.com
Cite: Sebastianus Menggo*, Yosefina Helenora Jem, Stanislaus Guna, and Raimundus Beda, "Watch and Practice: Effectiveness of Using WhatsApp as a Multimedia Tool in Boosting Speaking Competence during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 143-150, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).