STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN WRITING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

. This study aimed to find out the perception of semester VIII students of the English Language Education Study Program at Universitas Tanjungpura about the most used social media for writing English as a Foreign Language. This study used a descriptive design and a quantitative method. To collect the data, the researcher used a survey through a questionnaire and interview. The population in this study was 81 students, while the sample was 39 students from classes A1, A2, A3, B1, and B2. The instrument for collecting the data was 28-item questionnaires and 4 main questions interviews. The result of this study was that students have positive perceptions with a total of 79%. Furthermore, from the data, it was found that the most used social media for English writing practice was Instagram with a total of 73%. Moreover, the reason students use Instagram to write English is caused by external factors and internal factors. Therefore, students perceive that Instagram is the most appropriate social media to practice English writing skills.


INTRODUCTION
Social media is a medium that uses the internet to provide various kinds of information to the public.According to Talaue et al. (2018), social media are online technology platforms that help people to connect far and near.Until now, social media has become important and popular and will soon replace all other media types, such as print media (newspapers and magazines) and broadcast media (radio and television).Many countries, including Indonesia, use social media for educational purposes.So, most students use the internet and social media to help with their academic problems.Also, the majority of students use various social media to create personal profiles, post about their daily activities, upload photos, and communicate with their friends and family (McCord et al., 2016).
According to Arif (2019), English is one of the most widely used languages on social media because it is an international language and it is also used as a foreign language by people in Indonesia, particularly students, to be learned in only a few institutions such as schools, courses, or universities.Therefore, learning English using social media platforms is very easy and widely used by students because students are used to using social media.Also, learning English, which is made easier by the Internet and technology, motivates students to study the language (Wil et al., 2019).
Multiple studies have found that social media has become a preferred learning environment for the development of language skills, particularly for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) or English as a Second Language (ESL).Mastering a language, especially a foreign language like English, is needed by using the internet to practice language skills because it has plenty of English content (Anwas et al., 2020).So, it has been proven that most people nowadays are mastering a language by using social media and the internet.
One of the important skills for students to master while learning English is writing skills because writing is one of the main skills that can help students master their English language skills as well as grammar, vocabulary, and spelling use (Ratnawati, 2020).Every student who learns English should work to improve their writing skills since it allows them to express their ideas, opinions, sentiments, and emotions in writing to others (Hasibuan, 2021).Being able to create a text with good unity, coherence, and cohesion while following the grammar and syntactical norms as well as the mechanics of writing is the definition of writing well in English (Rezeki, 2017).Therefore, writing is one of the skills that English students need to learn and master because by mastering writing skills, students can create great writing and communicate with people around the world.In addition, students must also study writing because writing is a compulsory subject in the English Language Education Study Program.This is stated in the curriculum structure of the English Education study program, where Writing Skill Development, Paragraph Writing, Essay Writing, and Writing Research Proposal courses are compulsory courses (Sylphiasimanjuntak et al., 2021).
However, developing English writing is not easy for most students, because in class, writing lessons they get are very limited, so they need to have their own way to improve their writing skills outside of class.In this age of digital technology, students can enhance their writing skills by using social media platforms (Sari et al., 2019).As stated by Hasibuan (2021), the internet is one of the support systems for students' writing that allows them to practice their writing skills in a variety of formats.Side by side with the internet, there are many kinds of social media platforms that can be used to help students learn English and improve their writing skills.
According to Wil et al. (2019), the social media that can best afford English language learning, especially writing, are WhatsApp and Instagram, because they are more beneficial, easier, free, and only need a stable internet connection.On the other hand, Sakkir and Abrar (2018) state that the implementation of Facebook, especially the Facebook group, in writing classes is interesting to the students and they have positively perceived that.
Mostly, from many cases of semester VIII students of English Education at Tanjungpura University, are used to practicing their writing skills in class and outside the class, like on social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Blogs.Most of them used social media to practice their creative writing such as innovative forms, including poetry, prose, and drama to express feelings, thoughts, and ideas.Creative writing can be seen in the case of Facebook used for poetry in the ELT course.In this course, students are asked to make poetry with their own creativity and then share the results of the poems that have been made to the Facebook group.Therefore, in creative writing, students are required to think creatively to create interesting writing to read.Then, as Karmila & Sri Rezeki (2021) said, to create creativity in writing, we need a place as a medium for publication so that our writing is read and valued by many people.Therefore, the use of social media, such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Blogs is very suitable as a place for students to express their creativity in writing (Arif et al., 2019).
Regarding the use of social media to learn English and write, each student has different perceptions.This is because each student uses social media in a different way (Sumandya et al., 2022).That is why the perception of each student can be positive, neutral, or negative because each of them gets a different effect from being active on social media and using it to write.According to Rakhmanina et al. (2020), perception is the experience of objects, events, and relationships that is continued and interpreted message knowledge.As a result, each sensor can be used to observe and evaluate an object in its surroundings.Every student's perception can be influenced by many factors, such as internal and external factors.Internal factors include students' needs and desires, personality, and experience.Meanwhile, the external factors come from the support of friends and family, the learning facilities or environment, peer relationships, and the teacher (Ramli et al., 2018).As a result, every person perceives a certain object in a different way.It depends on how they view the object itself, which is influenced by several factors that come from the person themselves as well as the target and situational context.Therefore, in terms of students' perception, internal factors come from the students themselves, but external factors come from outside the students, such as those from the target and the situational context (Widana et al., 2023).
Several studies have been conducted related to the student's perception of using social media to improve and develop their writing skills, particularly in terms of English as a Foreign Language.From several previous studies, it indicates that students have a positive perception of several social media (Sakkir et al., 2016;Afifah & Yunus, 2020;& Bowo et al., 2021).In general, it concluded that social media can be a good medium to help students practice English skills.This research itself focused on finding out students' perceptions of each social media and which social media they prefer to write English as a Foreign Language.Also, the reasons why they choose specific social media to practice their English writing skills.Therefore, this study seeks to answer the research questions, (1) how is the semester VIII students' perception of using social media in writing English as a Foreign Language?; (2) what is the most used social media by the semester VIII students to write English as a Foreign Language?; and (3) why do semester VIII students choose to use one of these social media to write English as a Foreign Language?

METHOD
This type of research was descriptive quantitative research with a survey method.The research population was 81 students of semester VIII in the English Language Education Study Program at Universitas Tanjungpura.To choose the right sample for this study, the researcher conducted a preliminary survey and there were 39 students who were suitable for this research.The data was gathered online by using an internet questionnaire that was made on Google Forms and distributed to the students through WhatsApp.The questionnaire in this study was carried out twice, namely the main questionnaire with 13 items and a follow-up questionnaire with 15 items.
The type of questionnaire in this study was a close-ended questionnaire adopted from the previous study conducted by Afifah and Yunus (2020) and Nuarta (2020) and modified according to the purpose of this study.The questionnaire consisted of several items, including: 1) students' identity; 2) the preferred social media to write in English; 3) students' opinion of social media to practice English writing; 4) perceived of usefulness; 5) perceived ease of use; and 6) students' satisfaction.The close-ended questionnaire was in the form of a Likert scale.It is clearly seen in the table below.Very Negative In analyzing the data from a close-ended questionnaire, the researcher used descriptive statistical analysis.For analyzing data from interviews, the researcher recorded the answers from each interviewee.Then, the researcher transcribed the interview recording.After that, the researcher used thematic analysis to analyze the data from the interview.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The researcher provides results from the data from the questionnaire and interview that has been collected and analyzed.It can be seen in the diagram below.
Image 1.The preferable social media to learn English writing The frequency of using social media can show which one of the social media students preferred to practice English writing.The chart above showed that most students agreed that Instagram was the social media they preferred to practice their English writing (73%).
The second most preferred social media to practice English writing is WhatsApp (68%).Moreover, the least preferable social media is Facebook (59%) and Blogs (51%).Moreover, the data from the interview also showed that 4 out of 9 students interviewed chose Instagram.Students said the reason they chose Instagram is because Instagram is a popular and easy-to-use application.

Image 2. The reason why students use Instagram to learn English writing
From the image above, students are more influenced to use social media because of the external factor than the internal factor.As a result, it is found that there are eleven points of reasons why students prefer using Instagram to practice their English writing skills.This reason is influenced by internal and external factors.Some of the internal factors that influence students to use Instagram include the ability, motivation, and interactions that occur between users on Instagram.It was found that the highest mean score for the internal factor is sharing posts on Instagram can motivate students to write even better (M=4.33).This can be supported by the interview where the respondent stated "Through Instagram, I can share my writing with others so that it helps me to write better." Another internal factor is for the item: 1) post something on Instagram helps students find better ideas in writing (M=4.16); 2) Regularly using Instagram can help students express their writing through appropriate spelling, punctuation, and capitalization (M=3.75); and 3) Interact with each other by providing comments and feedback to fellow Instagram users to help students to fix their writing and correct the grammatical mistake (M=3.66).
Meanwhile, external factors come in a sequence of the availability of Instagram features.The highest mean score for the external factor is the availability of explore features, where this feature help students to search for any content or account about English and writing (M=4.75).This can be supported by the interview where the respondent stated "I think the explore feature is good for learning because we can find as much learning material as possible."Another Instagram features is the home page features where this feature can help students to find lots of content or post related to English and writing (M=4.5).The comment feature also allows students to practice writing English by giving comments or feedback to posts or stories (M=4.41).This is supported by respondent statement that "I like using comment feature to comment my friend's post and story." Another feature of Instagram is the photo-sharing feature which allows students to improve their English writing skills by making captions on photo shared (M=4.25).The respondents also tend to use the profile interface feature for making Instagram bio (M=4.16).Moreover, Instagram feature such as profile content can also help students view related profiles or accounts about English and writing (M=3.91).The last feature is direct message (DM), which helps students practice their English writing skills by sending messages to friends (M=3.75).
From the findings, the explore feature is the feature that students like most to practice writing English.Apart from with very good and good responses from students on these features, it is known that all features on Instagram can help students to practice their English writing.Moreover, while using Instagram to learn writing, there are many satisfactions felt by students.With the ease of features that Instagram has, students can easily access the English lessons they want anytime and anywhere (M=4.5).students also feel satisfied that by writing on Instagram students can easily express feelings, thoughts, and ideas (M=4.41).In addition, students are also satisfied with the ease of access to features on Instagram (M=4.16) and this convenience helps students to improve their communicative skills (M=4.16).with a total mean of 4.31, overall students were satisfied with Instagram as a social media for practicing writing English.

Image 3. Students' perception on the social media in writing English
The results of the calculation and image above shows the percentage of students' perception of social media to practice English writing.It is shown that 79% of students can be categorized as students who have positive perceptions.From the interview, students also agree that social media (Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Blogs) helps them in practicing their English writing skills.From the statement above, it can be concluded that students mostly agree that the social media they usually use, such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Blogs can be a media for them to practice their English writing skills dan communicate with people around the world.
Based on the findings, it has been proven that the student's perception of the use of social media for practicing writing in English is positive (76%).It reconfirms the previous research (Sakkir et al. (2016), Afifah and Yunus (2020)).However, for the second point findings said that Instagram is the most preferable social media to practice students writing in English (68.27%).It is not similar to previous research.According to Sakkir et al. (2016), the type of electronic social media activity students usually use to write is Facebook.Moreover, Afifah and Yunus (2020) state that YouTube is the most preferred SNS to practice English writing skills.Bowo et al. (2021)  With so many features that help students learn to write English, students get a lot of satisfaction while using it.One of the satisfactions that students feel the most while using Instagram to learn to write English is the ease of accessing English materials on Instagram anytime and anywhere.Easy access to English material on Instagram is of course supported by existing features such as explore, home, reels, short videos, and profile content features.This is supported by one of the students' opinions that the explore and create features are good features for learning.The advantage of the explore feature is that we can find as much learning material as possible (Purnadewi & Widana, 2023).And then practice writing in the create feature.

CONCLUSION
Based on the research findings, the conclusion of this study is that Instagram is the most used social media by semester VIII students to write English as a foreign language.The reason students use Instagram is mostly influenced by external and internal factors.Moreover, semester VIII students have a positive perception of social media in writing English as a foreign language.That is why, teachers and students can use social media, especially Instagram, in class because Instagram has many features that can Instagram has many features that can support the teaching and learning process.

Table 1 .
Range score of statement

Table 2 .
Rating of students' perception interpretation (Alsubaie & Madini, 2018)using YouTube is preferable for students.Meanwhile, from the findings, it was found that Instagram was the most preferred social media to practice English writing (68.27%).Nevertheless, the reasons semester VIII students used Instagram are mostly influenced by internal and external factors.From the findings, it can be seen that the internal factors are based on students' attitudes toward Instagram and how they interact on Instagram.This is in line withHandayani (2021)that students had very good attitudes regarding their feelings and ideas about using Instagram in writing activities with a total score of 89%.When using Instagram features, students need to be aware of grammatical structure, punctuation, and choose the right vocabulary.As from the findings, students can use appropriate spelling, punctuation, and capitalization in expressing their writing on Instagram.This is in line with Afifah and Yunus (2020) that said, when users are aware of their spelling and grammatical errors and receive comments from other users, it may help them write in English more effectively.Moreover, external factors that underlie the reasons students choose Instagram to practice writing English are due to the ease of access and the availability of features available on Instagram.Instagram features such as explore, home page, comments, photo sharing, profile interface, profile content, and direct messages are helping students practice writing English.The proper use of Instagram features is beneficial for students who are practicing writing English on Instagram.That is why Instagram was chosen by semester VIII students because this application has interesting features and some of these features are not on other social media(Alsubaie & Madini, 2018).Moreover, from the interview, it was found that many semester VIII students chose to use Instagram because Instagram is an application that is popular, easy to use, and has interesting features.Students also further claim that the features on Instagram really helped facilitate them in practicing writing English.Based on the interview, some Instagram features that have helped students learn to write English are posts and stories, explore and reels, comments, and direct messages.