In the last decade, the use of digital platforms in education has changed its paradigm

to providing students with learning resources and acquiring essential skills. English-
major students gain value for listening skills, so that they are able to listen to lectures,
consider materials and contribute to the discussions fully. With the growth of
technology, social media platforms like YouTube has been embraced as a potential
source of teaching and learning aid; the compliments of which are; it provides a wide
range of resource for language learners from all over the world.

Specifically, YouTube education channels offer English-major learners the special

way of improving their listening skills. Accompanied by different accents, intonations,
and topics in achievement, the student will be able to listen to the real English used in
educational and business settings. Nevertheless, as portrayed above, YouTube has a
lot of possibilities, although their efficiency for the academic listening has not been
investigated enough, particularly in regards to English-major students in certain
universities, inclusive of the UFM. Also there are some open questions on how
students can solve potential pitfalls, for example staying on the topic, finding suitable
content or distraction on the platform.

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of Youtube educational channels
on the academic listening comprehension of UFM English-major students. In addition
to presenting a discussion of the ways in which these students benefit and/or are met
with difficulties when using YouTube as a learning aid, the focus of the study is on
what needs to be done to enhance the acceptability of this online platform and better
the performance of learnerswith English as their second language.

Therefore, to realize their roles to skills development especially in an era where digital
platforms are dominant in practice in the education sector, there is need to make
research in order to establish their roles. As one of the internet pioneers and
considering the fact that millions of users shared various materials on youtube, it is
possible to find diverse educational materials that English-major students can use to
develop listening skills. Colloquy listening skill which is fundamental to academic
learning involves understanding of complicated knowledge, course attendance and
interaction with scholarly resources. However, the presence of educational channel on
YouTube there is scarcity of studies on the effectiveness of the particular channel for
the English-major students in an academic context.
It is compulsory for the students majoring in English at the University of Finance-
Marketing (UFM) to have efficient listening skills beneficial for their educational
courses and their eventual work places. However, they have challenged in to find
proper resources for sustainable academic English that reflects classroom
requirements. Hearing different accents, different ways of speaking, different topics
having perhaps closer simulation to real life university experience may be the real
value, which YouTube educational channels offer, which textbooks do not. However,
together with these advantages and outcomes, the learner may face challenges, which
include poor content quality, distraction, and managing a broad range of materials.

This research aims at filling this gap by examining how the YouTube educational
channels influencing the academic listening abilities of UFM English-major students.
Therefore, in order to contribute to the utilization of YouTube in language education
by pointing out the benefits of the tool as well as its possible drawbacks, the study has
the following objectives. The results might assist educators as well as learners to
optimally tailor YouTube to develop academic listening environment which would in
turn support the improvement of English-as-second-Language and other instructional
tech-profile programs and resources.
1.2.1 The implementation of the use of digital resources within the contexts of
learning and practicing language has greatly transformed the approach with significant
regard to listening. With the subject access to technologies, students are not only
confined to academic resources that are available in classrooms but a pool of online
tools a revue. In the context of digital resources used by Ghasemi and Hashemi
(2011), flexibility and interactivity over the materials and their accessibility ensure
they would promote the kind of learning process required for second language
acquisition. These include, web-based technologies, websites, pod casts, videos and
mobile applications that supplement skills practice outside class.

Especially, the development of listening skills is enriched with the help of digital
materials. Using samples from multimedia, students get to hear how people speak and
how certain phrases do sound when pronounced and when intonations affect
meanings; aspects that may be very hard to capture on paper (Brett, 1997). The
exposure in this matter is important for the development of listening comprehension in
English for academic purpose. Listening: Vandergrift and Goh (2012) demonstrated
that applications assist students in listening in various situations that are of importance
to succeed in perceiving spoken English. Services such as YouTube, TED and online
lecture series enable the learners to hear various speech patterns and content thus
developing adequate preparedness for real university settings.
Still, using digital resources provides opportunities and at the same time has its
drawbacks. In the same view Hubbard (2004) pointed out that such a tool may pose
some problems that may include, inconsistencies in the quality of content, and that the
casual environment may cause distraction in addition to the absence of a clear
framework on how to use it for learning languages. However, it may also be a
problem for students to distinguish what type of material they need among the
presented variety of materials offered by Internet. Despite these challenges, the
advantages of digital resources in language learning are clear: marketing methods are
expected to avail exposure, flexibility and variety that conventional approaches cannot
offer.
1.2.2. YouTube has proved to be a good source when it comes to additional resources
for language learners and involves a variety of authentic materials which can help to
develop listening skills and provide the exposure to the real English. Through its TED
Talks, lectures and interviews, the platform exposes learners to different accents,
vocabulary and speaking rate which are critical in learner development. Watkins &
Wilkins, (2011) in his work expounded that such an authentic material facilitates
learners’ increased opportunity of comprehending spoken language in their scholastic
or vocational settings.

In addition to the availability of choice, the YouTube approach also enables the
student find content that interests him/her, which in turn leads to motivation and
engagement, both of which are requirements to learning supported by Krashen (1982).
For instance, Alimemaj (2010) proves that students using YouTube demonstrate
improved listening comprehension and increased confidence in comprehending native
speakers. However, Almurashi (2016) insists on certain demerits like inconsistency of
contents, and the possibility of diversion by advertisements and other unrelated
videos.

However, it is clear that YouTube still can be a preferred and multi-functional source
for learning language. To English-major students, it provides much needed listening
skills practice that supplements academic learning so that school knowledge can be
translated into real-life usage. In the following section, it will be investigated how the
educational channels of YouTube affect students’ listening in the classroom.
Academic purposes are essential for listening comprehension since students have to
listen to lectures, group discussions, and other difficult content (Graham & Macaro,
2008). These skills can help language learners decode spoken language in real time,
make meaning of it, and store information. In their proper way, Field (2008) points
out that the effectiveness of these sub-skills is the foundation for academic listening
and that the awareness of these skills would increase the learner’s independence.