Research on the Impact of Social Media Short Videos on College English Listening and Speaking Teaching

Abstract

This study focuses on the integration path and effect of short videos on social media and college English listening and speaking teaching, aiming to provide a reference for the reform of college English listening and speaking teaching through empirical exploration. The research adopted a mixed research method (quantitative +
qualitative), selecting 90 second-year students of other majors from a certain university as the research subjects. All students had achieved a level 4 English proficiency (425–500 points) and had not received short video-assisted listening and speaking teaching. They were randomly allocated to the experimental group (45 people). A 16-week teaching experiment was carried out by using short videos from platforms such as YouTube and TikTok for auxiliary teaching and a control group (45 people, taught using the traditional textbook “New Horizons College English (Third Edition)” listening and speaking course). During the experiment, the teaching of the two groups was carried out around three units: campus life, cross-cultural communication, and career planning. The teacher was the same person to control the variables. Data were collected through several methods, including tests, questionnaires on learning motivation, classroom observations, and interviews. After conducting independent sample t-tests and ANOVA with SPSS 24.0 and qualitative coding analysis with Nvivo 12, it was found that: in terms of listening and speaking abilities, the average score of the experimental group after the test was (78.6 ±
7.2), which showed a significant advantage compared with the control group (68.5 ±
8.1) (t=5.82, p<0.01). The improvement rate (16.3 points) was 2.4 times that of the control group (6.7 points). Meanwhile, the difference in the long dialogue question type was the most significant (difference proportion +22.95%). After the test, the average score of the experimental group was (76.3 ±7.8), which showed a significant advantage compared with the control group (66.2 ±8.4) (t=4.95, p<0.01). Compared with the control group, the pronunciation dimension (78.5 ±6.9) was 12.3 points higher and the fluency dimension (77.2 ±7.1) was 11.5 points higher. In terms of learning motivation, compared with the control group (p<0.05), the four ARCS model dimensions of attention (4.2 ±0.5), relevance (4.1 ±0.6), confidence (4.0 ±0.5), and satisfaction (3.9 ±0.6) in the experimental group all had obvious advantages. Among them, the score difference in the confidence dimension is the most significant, at 0.9 points. Moreover, the motivation showed a phased characteristic of rapid increase from the 1st to the 4th week and stable improvement after the 8th week, forming a positive cycle from ability improvement to motivation enhancement, despite the absence of a prominent fluctuation in the motivation of the control group throughout the process (the difference in each dimension was ≤0.1). In terms of teaching adaptability, the real context (multiple accents, life-like scenarios) of short videos solves the problem of disconnection between teaching materials and language resources. The duration of 15 seconds to 5 minutes is suitable for fragmented learning, and the high interactivity (imitation, recording, and mutual evaluation) enhances classroom participation The average number of active speeches per class in the experimental group (18.5 times) was three times that of the control group (6.2 times), and the participation in group discussions (92%) was significantly higher than that of the control group (65%). Further analysis of the effects of different types of short videos reveals that the educational category performed best in capturing listening details (4.5 points) and imitating oral pronunciation (4.4 points), the cultural category scored the highest in stimulating learning motivation (4.6 points), and the daily category had a significant advantage in improving oral fluency (4.5 points). Research has confirmed that short videos on social media can effectively assist college students of other majors in English listening and speaking teaching and stimulate their learning motivation. In teaching, complementary advantages should be achieved by adopting strategies such as using educational videos in the basic stage, daily videos in the application stage, and interspersing cultural videos throughout the process.