Abstract

This study aims to deeply explore the Saudi college students’ perspective about the role of audio and visual English media in developing their English-speaking proficiency. To arrive to the best results possible a survey was used as a data collection tool. A focus group of five college students who were interested in improving their English proficiency was formed. Following the brainstorming technique, they created a questionnaire of six multiple choice, checkbox, rating, and scale questions which was reviewed by three experts and then piloted on 30 students, improved accordingly, created by Google Forms, and finally distributed online via WhatsApp groups. College students who were interested in improving their English-speaking proficiency and used to listen to and/or watch English media were requested to respond to the questionnaire. A sample of 65 college students’ responses were received and the data was analyzed by Google Forms. The major results revealed that: -the immense majority of students believed the English media could affect their speaking proficiency, -YouTube, social media, songs, and movies were the most repetitively and continuously used by students. -YouTube and movies were the types of media that affected the speaking proficiency the most. -Pronunciation was the most affected area by the media. Related educational recommendations and deeper further studies were suggested.