YouTube as Digital Learning Resources for Teaching Bilingual Young Learners

Abstract

As YouTube has become an integral part of the students' daily social media consumption, the present study argues that it can also be a valuable language learning source. Following George's (2008) model of Library Research and Aveyard's (2010) concept of Systematic Literary review, the present study selected and synthesise previous research and experts' opinion on the use of social media and YouTube for teaching English to young bilingual learners to propose the benefits of using YouTube as a medium for second language learning. YouTube has generally deemed a useful learning resource for young learners, and studies have highlighted the positive impacts of using YouTube to improve young learners' English skills. However, experts and researchers are also concerned about the weaknesses and threats posed by YouTube as a learning source for teaching English for young learners. These are prerequisite stable internet connection to access YouTube, irrelevant ads that cut in the middle of the videos, and next-videos suggestions that are not always relevant with the learning material in focus. Thus, while YouTube can be a useful learning resource, strategies to tackle its weaknesses are needed to optimise the benefits of using YouTube as a learning source for young learners.