English Department students’ perception carrying out VLOG (Video Blogging) assignment as a speaking activity in speaking a course

In this era of globalization, English becomes so important as the worldwide language of communication that it is taught in schools and universities. However, students often endure some hurdles in learning English, especially speaking. Hence, VLOG (Video Blogging) is currently chosen as a media to solve the learning barriers. In the English Department study program, VLOG was utilized as a Speaking activity. As a result, this research was conducted in order to find out the English Department students’ perception carrying out VLOG assignment as a Speaking activity in Speaking A Course. Based on that purpose, the researcher requested the participation of 34 second-semester students of English Department in the academic year of 2017/2018. A questionnaire consisted of four sections was designed through the process of adaptation from Aydan’s (2014) study and developed following the related theory of VLOG implementation. In addition, a five-question interview was conducted to dig deeper into the respondents’ opinions. Accordingly, both quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to elaborate the data collected. Referring to the perceptions based on students’ language learning exposures, it is revealed that VLOG has been considered as a helpful media for the undergraduate students who gained more benefits instead of hurdles during the process of VLOG production. Many positive responses confirmed that the features of VLOG assignment facilitated the students to improve their speaking, teamwork, and collaborative skills as well as their creativity, originality, and critical thinking. On the other hand, several unfavorable opinions covering the challenges faced by the students were also discussed