Telegram as an E-Learning Tool in English for General Purposes (EGP) Context in Urmia University of Medical Sciences (UMSU)

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Didactics - Common Didactics, Educational Objectives, Methods, grade: 1, , course: TEFL, language: English, abstract: Nowadays, virtual space is a typical environment in learning context. To use it in learning process, Telegram is the most famous online E-learning tool among Iranian students, and it has established an online platform for English learners. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate students' perspectives toward telegram as an E-learning tool in EGP context in UMSU.To this end, an online questionnaire was designed and conducted in a Telegram to investigate students' perspectives toward Telegram in using four different components of English including reading, writing, listening, and speaking in EGP context. The participants of this study were 300 (150 male and 150 female) students, equally 100 students (50 males and 50 females) from three faculties of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy.The findings revealed that Telegram can bring technological and pedagogical advantages for EFL learners, and majority of students in UMSU prefer to use it for reading and writing components. According to learners' statements, it has also a significantly positive effect on the development of vocabulary learning in EFL context as a online E-learning tool. The findings of present study are considered to be useful in language pedagogy and methodology.