An Investigation into Students’ and Teachers’ Perceptions of the Dual Role of Social Media Language on Academic English Proficiency

Abstract

Social media language is increasingly shaping the linguistic habits of English as a foreign language students. Hence, the current study aims to investigate the impact of social media language on the academic English proficiency of third-year English as a foreign language students at Almoudjahid Abdelhafid Boussouf University of Mila. For this reason, three research questions are posed: (1) What are the main social media features that third-year English as a foreign language students transfer into their academic environment? (2) To what extent does social media language influence students’ academic English proficiency across the four language skills? (3) What are the teachers’ and students’ perceptions regarding the advantages and drawbacks of social media language transfer on academic performance? To answer these questions, a mixed-methods research design is adopted, utilizing a closed-ended questionnaire administered to 65 third-year English as a foreign language students and semi-structured interviews conducted with ten university teachers. The data were analyzed using statistical trend analysis for the quantitative data and thematic analysis for the qualitative insights. The findings revealed that while both groups acknowledge social media as a tool for improving fluency and listening, a significant perceptual gap exists. Students often perceive their online habits as harmless, whereas teachers report that these informal practices frequently interfere with formal writing standards and the sustained academic attention needed for reading complex academic texts. The study concludes that addressing the duality of social media language is essential. Teachers proposed that academic courses should explicitly clarify the distinction between informal digital communication and formal academic standards. Additionally, these results suggest that fostering academic proficiency requires integrating digital literacy into the curriculum and raising students’ awareness of different linguistic registers.