Social Media in ELT: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Over the past decade, social media-based technologies have received significant research information in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT), especially after the COVID-19 crisis, which catalysed the rapid digitisation of language education. This is a systematic literature review that aggregates the empirical results obtained from the analysis of 86 peer-reviewed studies that were retrieved from the Web of Science, Scopus, ERIC, and Google Scholar databases located online, beginning from January 2013 and ending in March 2025, with the final ten months covered by a supplementary update search. The aim of this review is to look at (a) the social media platforms that have been prominently used in ELT and (b) the language skills most commonly dealt with and that are (c) better suited to ELT because of social media's pedagogical affordances, as well as to (d) barriers and challenges of integrating social media in language instruction. The results indicate that the most commonly-used platforms were YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Telegram, with writing and vocabulary development the most highly researched. The dominant theoretical framework appears to be social constructivism and the Community of Practice approach. There is strong evidence that it has benefited motivation, engagement, and skill acquisition, although issues of distraction, privacy, and teacher training pose significant challenges as well. The review ends with a discussion of a pedagogically sound approach for the responsible and effective use of social media in ELT settings and priorities for future research.