The Effect of Social Media on Palestinian Ninth Graders’ English Writing Proficiency

This study aimed at investigating the effect of using social media on the ninth graders' progress in writing skills and their attitudes towards writing at schools in the West Bank. Moreover, the study examined the effect of gender, academic qualifications, governorate, educational experience, professional experience, professional experience in teaching English as a foreign language and sector on Palestinian ninth graders' English writing proficiency. A five point Likert questionnaire and a standardized writing test were developed. The researcher administer them to experimental group and control group from ninth grades. This test included three composition questions to get three paragraphs based on English writing proficiency of Palestinian ninth graders'. A stratified random sample consisted of "1094" Palestinian ninth graders' English language teachers in the West Bank was chosen. Also, a standardized writing test was randomly administered to also a stratified random sample of "180" Palestinian ninth graders'. The researcher used SPSS to analyze data. Results showed that Palestinian ninth graders’ have positive attitudes towards using social media as a tool of writing in the English language. There were no significant differences on the effect of social media towards English writing proficiency of Palestinian ninth graders’ due to gender and governorate in the domains of the students' attitudes, type of impact and the effect of social media. Additionally, there were no significant differences in the effect of social media towards English writing proficiency of Palestinian ninth graders’ due to academic qualification on the third domain, whereas there were significant differences on the effect of social media towards English writing proficiency of Palestinian ninth graders’ due to academic qualification in the first and second domains. There were also statistically significant differences on the effect of social media towards English writing proficiency of Palestinian ninth graders’ due to educational experience and professional experience in the first and second domains. While there were no significant differences on the effect of social media towards English writing proficiency of Palestinian ninth graders’ due to educational experience and professional experience in the third domain. Moreover, there were no significant differences on the effect of social media towards English writing proficiency of Palestinian ninth graders’ due to sector in the second and third domains, but there were significant differences on the effect of social media towards English writing proficiency of Palestinian ninth graders’ due to sector in the first domain. The researcher recommended that teachers are asked to use the social media technology in teaching writing skills in order to develop and improve their students' ability in writing skills. It also suggested that further researches should be conducted on the effects of social media towards different English skills and other school subjects