English as a Foreign Language Students' Opinions about the Use of English on the Internet

As in many other fields, the Internet has been used for educational purposes, especially for foreign language learning. This study has the main objective to investigate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students' opinions about the use of English on the Internet. By means of a Likert-type questionnaire dealing with the use of English on the Internet for various reasons (i.e., interest, benefit, socialization, entertainment), the views of 364 high school students at two high schools in a small city in Turkey were collected. Mean values and standard deviations were calculated in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS-23) to reveal their reasons for using English on the Internet. Also, the question as to whether opinions about the use of English on the Internet significantly differ depending on the gender variable was explored by means of the independent samples t-test. The analysis of the data yielded the conclusion that participants mostly use English on the Internet for entertainment. It was also found that their level of interest in using English on the Internet was not very high. Additionally, it was discovered that girls mostly use English on the Internet for socialization while boys use it for entertainment. The implication of the study is that students' level of interest in using English on the Internet should be increased.