O TikTok como ferramenta na aprendizagem de inglês como língua adicional: uma revisão de literatura

Abstract

The proliferation of TikTok usage on an international level has favoured its application in the field of education, especially in language teaching and learning processes. Given its status as a lingua franca, English is massively used as a means of content dissemination via TikTok in different parts of the world. However, through a preliminary search, it was found that there is a scarcity of research synthesis regarding the use of this application in the English as an additional language (EAL) classroom, which motivated the research addressed in this article. In the form of a literature review, the research was guided by principles of Systematic Literature Review and aimed to describe how the TikTok application has been used in the EAL classroom and what the learning benefits are from its use. For the search, selection, and extraction of written productions to compose the research corpus from databases stored on the World Wide Web, an adaptation of the research protocol model developed by Sarah Visintini was employed. After conducting some preliminary analyses based on retention and discard criteria, the final research corpus consisted of eight peer-reviewed articles. The thematic analysis method proposed by Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke was employed in the analysis process of the retained texts. The results suggest that TikTok can be effective in promoting the development of speaking skills and expanding the vocabulary repertoire of EAL students. Additionally, the use of the application can help keep them focused on classroom activities. More comprehensive searches in online databases, involving diverse mechanisms, can generate robust corpora, enabling broader and more in-depth analyses and discussions about the pedagogical use and benefits of TikTok in the EAL classroom.