World-Wide English: The Internet as a language learning tool

Abstract

Access to the Internet, both to study and for leisure activities, is ubiquitous today. The Web contains an extensive range of contents, of which about 55% is in English (W3Techs, 2023). In Iceland, a collective seven-year research project was carried out on English language exposure (Arnbjörnsdóttir, Ingvarsdóttir 2018). One of the findings was that students learn more English vocabulary through access to the media in their free time than through focused learning. Studies on the increased informal contact with English were also carried out in other European and extra-European contexts (Berns et al. 2007; Kusyk et al. 2020; Muñoz, Elke 2020) and Italy is seeing a similar trend (Pavesi, Ghia 2020), but research about naturalistic English learning in the country is still scarce. The ongoing PRIN project “The informalisation of English language learning through media: Language input, learning outcomes and sociolinguistic attitudes from an Italian perspective” (Prot. 2020NNJTW3) aims at filling this research gap. The goal of this presentation is to give a descriptive overview of a set of data collected in the framework of the PRIN project at the University of Salento, Lecce. A survey about English media access and usage was administered to 995 University students. This contribution focuses on the access to the Internet, in particular to YouTube, social media, blogs and forums, web pages, podcasts, radios, apps and e-commerce websites. Data about the frequency and the length of online activities carried out in English will be discussed in relation to students’ self-assessed level of English, their attitude towards the language and their socio-cultural background.