Exploring the Impact of YouTube Videos on Improving Listening Skills for EFL Secondary School Students in Sudan

: This study was carried out with the participation of forty-seven (47) high school students who were required to take English in order to continue their education at the university level. The participants were asked to respond to a given questionnaire composed from (5) axes, each axis has many items, the target was to explore the effect of watching YouTube on listening skills. Their responses were analyzed statistically, the results showed that some students were aware of the importance of listening skills and few do not have the sufficient perception about how these videos can help them. Their ability to interact with the speaker was showed as one of the most required skills, mastering this skill helps the students to interact with speakers. Students' ability to process information has been boosted by watching YouTube videos, and most will speak up if the presenter requests it, but many still struggle to come up with an appropriate answer to what was said, and many more are unable to adapt to differences in delivery style. We recommend watching the videos in the accompanying table.


INTRODUCTION
YouTube's positive effects on students' motivation, engagement, and language skills have been documented in recent research Jaffar, 2012;; Orús, et.all, 2016;. Kelsen (2009) also noted that YouTube was used as a source of entertaining, relevant, and effective additional content for university-level English learners. Benson, (2001), explained that there are two basic situational conditions that can be supported by the internet, because learners can use a lot of resources that contain authentic material whenever they want. Recently, technology has been providing a lot of opportunities for students who want to learn a language, and the internet is full of unlimited resources. An innovative development in multimedia and social media applications provide EFL learners with many activities related to real-time conversations found in TV and radio programs (Bahrani & Sim 2012). For enhanced language learning abilities, technological applications can be used by students as learning tools, and they have some positive influence on students' learning process. This study attempts to enlighten the impact of using YouTube in enhancing English

Abstract:
This study was carried out with the participation of forty-seven (47) high school students who were required to take English in order to continue their education at the university level. The participants were asked to respond to a given questionnaire composed from (5) axes, each axis has many items, the target was to explore the effect of watching YouTube on listening skills. Their responses were analyzed statistically, the results showed that some students were aware of the importance of listening skills and few do not have the sufficient perception about how these videos can help them. Their ability to interact with the speaker was showed as one of the most required skills, mastering this skill helps the students to interact with speakers. Students' ability to process information has been boosted by watching YouTube videos, and most will speak up if the presenter requests it, but many still struggle to come up with an appropriate answer to what was said, and many more are unable to adapt to differences in delivery style. We recommend watching the videos in the accompanying table.
pronunciation. The investigation of this study is completed using a questionnaire as a data gathering device, the participants are (47) secondary school students. This study highlights the influence of YouTube on enhancing listening skills. Numerous challenges might encounter by learners at the level of improving skills involved in listening to a second language. As a result, this research has been carried out based on listening sub-skills with the purpose of obtaining responses to the questionnaire's items. The major contribution of this study to the field of learning English as a foreign language appears as a result of many researches' findings showed that most of EFL students said that YouTube helped them improve their English vocabulary, make learning English more interesting, easily understand the content of YouTube videos, find useful resources for learning English, better acquire English by writing down the most important points in a diary while watching videos, improve their speaking and listening skills, and develop their vocabulary. As a result, this study concludes that there are several positive effects of YouTube use on EFL learners' English language ability.

Literature Review 2.1 YouTube videos as learning media for EFL learners
Now YouTube is available as an application which can be installed whether in smartphones or computers, and many types of videos containing all sorts of entertainment or educational contents are shared by users who can upload or download these videos. YouTube services began in February, 2005. Even if a user hasn't signed up, they can still see and comment on videos that have been posted. It releases videos online for a variety of reasons, including entertainment and education. There are long and short films available, each featuring a plethora of accents from various English varieties. YouTube gives EFL learners an opportunity to communicate with native and with nonnative speakers, and it also familiarizes them with different dialects and varieties of English spoken in many countries.
People of all ages use YouTube for an unlimited number of purposes including language learning, watching news channels and watching movies for entertainment. It provides EFL learners with resources for developing their language skills and instant access to authentic language materials in a wide variety of contexts (Wang & Chen, 2020). YouTube videos promote second language acquisition in general and self-regulated learning of English. Using YouTube videos improved EFL learners' speaking skills. Both written and video feedback help students achieve greater linguistic accuracy when speaking in English (Tseng & Yeh, 2019). EFL-YouTube remix empowers multimodal and computational literacies for EFL purposes (Eisenlauer, 2020). YouTube video-making helps EFL learners develop language, intercultural and universal knowledge. Output-focused video-based instruction helps in students' pragmatic development (Jernigan, 2012). Reflective YouTube videos developed students' teamwork skills, ability to manage stress, technological ability and creativity, delivering information and enriching knowledge related to English learning and other types of knowledge.
The role of technology in ESL classrooms is very clear and no one can ignore. Rapid technological advancement and development provide many resources for students to find online courses live or recorded. It transforms education from its conventional form to more modern strategies that are engaging, substantive, and fun for pupils. Access to the internet is crucial for students of English as a foreign language because of the wealth of audio-visual resources available on the many websites available to them. YouTube can be regarded as the most powerful software to use for obtaining success in learning English as a foreign language. EFL learners can watch YouTube videos to develop various skills such as spoken and written and to master language areas. It is a tool which is very useful for both teachers and students because it can be accessed everywhere whenever they want.
Technology offers a great deal of options to the students; it opens a lot of resources for language learning, these options contain web tools are the most useful innovations to be used inside classrooms and outside classrooms. Web 2.0 technologies play an important in enhancing language learning through technology, (Motteram & Sharma, 2009) showed that our understanding of language education has changed as a result of using technologies. According to (Tilfarlioglu, 2011), the technology which is used in designing web 2.0 helped in regulating undergraduate and high school students' perceptions towards learning English using this technology.
As stated by (Brook, 2011), CALL provides huge resources to learn English language, this fact is seen on the results which are taken from many researches when they proved that YouTube videos have positive influence on the learner's mastery of English language. YouTube is a tool that can be used to facilitate language learning, expands confidence, affords materials created by native speakers and also raises the participation of EFL learners. Teachers who prefer promoting learners' autonomy, might find YouTube useful. (Sherman, 2003) indicated that most people spend more time watching videos and they prefer audiovisual materials which are proved to be interesting for them, when also watching audiovisual materials, two senses are used at the same time-seeing and hearing-. Authentic materials included on the channels motivate learners and increase their awareness towards reliable and accurate native speakers' use of their language

Types of YouTube videos
YouTube is full of channels contain two types of videos which show English language lessons. First, videos show a teacher explaining different types of English lessons. These types of videos are considered very effective for English language learners. Second, videos including native English speakers demonstrate various kinds of content, such as blogs, entertainment, reporting events, etc. Such videos will be very convenient for students who are already in the grade of advanced learners in learning English (Ghasemi, et al., 2011). Research handled by (Ofcom,2017) showed that 81% of children aged 8-11 years are intimate with videos found on YouTube channels. Assuredly, this can be regarded as an advantage for watching of YouTube videos in acquiring English language skills for both school students and university students.
For pedagogical purposes, a lot of videos are designed and uploaded to YouTube, they can also as a good an instructor in conveying facts or determining methods in joining the processes of learning and teaching. They aid and ease the process of learning in order to enable learners to improve their skills using social networks or other communication strategies which enable them to exchange knowledge with other EFL learners everywhere. (Tarnopolsky & Degtiariova, 2003) accepted that YouTube channels afford EFL learner chances to listen, see and detect how native speakers interact with others, this helps them proceed further on their abilities to improve their skills, including pronunciation.
Modern researches on watching YouTube videos in language learning such as , , Jaffar, 2012, Orús, et.all, 2016, showed positive influence on learners' motivation when they studied particular language area, it motivated them to enhance engagement, and to improve language skills and vocabulary. (Kelsen, 2009) also displayed that YouTube was created to be a source of attractive, admissible and helpful supplementary contents at advanced level for university students.
Students need to be guided by an instructor in order to avoid spending unproductive time and to stop time consuming, this can be achieved by suggesting channels that are made for teaching the English language (Watkins & Wilkins, 2011). In this case, teachers and parents must cooperate in choosing and deciding the appropriate material for their students. For a teacher to effectively incorporate YouTube channels into his English lessons, he must be wellversed in determining what constitutes proper classroom viewing. The professional and educational capability of the teacher is an essential requirement if he wants to be good at his job.

Listening skills to develop by second (L2) language learners
An EFL learner needs to be familiar with authentic materials in an authentic environment because he might be either familiar or unfamiliar to that authentic environment. A frequently experienced and seen something can be regarded as familiar and it is clearly observed. Besides, something which is unknown or is different can be described as un familiar (Rustam Shadiev, 2022).
Adams-Goertel, 2013, explained that all EFL learners or non-native speakers must achieve accurate pronunciation in order to distinguish meanings or to produce intelligible sentences. It is proved that good ability of pronunciation develops EFL learners' ability to produce accurate utterances and to smoothly comprehend spoken language. (Julia, 2002) showed that spoken language is a result of pronunciation, so if there is no pronunciation there would be no spoken language and no verbal interaction. This proves that EFL learners need to master listening skills so as to master speaking skills because they mirror each other. Walker & Goodith 2017, suggested a list of listening abilities which learners need to develop based on a combination of experiences in teaching listening; the skills stated below are all needed in order to comprehend and respond to a spoken message. a. Awareness. b. Connecting sounds to language items. c. Clarifying meaning using knowledge of the world. d. Working with information. e. Collaborating with the speaker.

Methods
The data were collected in this study using a questionnaire as a data gathering device. The questionnaire was designed based on the five questions of the study so as to investigate the impact of using YouTube videos presented by specialists in the field of teaching English as a foreign language on enhancing English language listening skills. Each item has five degrees describing participants' responses starting from (Strongly Disagree) which has given 1 point, then (Disagree) which has given 2 points, and (Neutral) which has given 3 points, before the last (Agree) which has given 4 points and finally (Strongly Agree) has given 5 points. The axes of the questionnaire contain twenty-four items which represent the sub-skills proposed by (Walker & Goodith 2017) in a list of listening abilities which learners need to develop based on a combination of experiences in teaching listening which are needed by EFL learners to improve their listening skills using YouTube videos.

3.1.Participants
This study was carried out in a public secondary school in Sharq Al Neel province in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. Forty-seven students between the ages of fourteen and nineteen were given the questionnaire to participate as a sample to respond to its items. All the students were males and no females participated in this study. All of the students studied the English language as a major required course of the Sudan government syllabus of the secondary schools which qualifies them to enter universities. Participants had at least 4 years of experience surfing the internet and watching YouTube videos.

3.2.Questionnaire items
The questionnaire was divided into five parts, and each part contains between (4) and (6) listening skills to be evaluated. The parts are designed according to the questions of the study as shown in the tables below. The first axis contains (5) items which are designed to investigate the learners' perception about using YouTube videos to improve their listening skills. The second Axis has (6) items designed to check EFL learners' ability to match sounds to the language items. The third Axis contains (3) items used to explore the students' ability in interpreting meaning using knowledge of the world. The fourth axis has (4) items constructed to find the students' ability to deal with information they hear. The fifth axis which is the last one in the questionnaire has (6) items constructed to check whether the students can interact with the speaker or not.

Results
Firstly, the responses of the students to each axis of the questionnaire are statistically analysed to find the mean in order to find where the centre value is located and to make projections about a standard of normalcy within the students who respond to the questionnaire. Second, the standard deviation of each axis is calculated to find how spread out the data is. It is a measure of how far each observed value is from the mean in any distribution. Then the percentages of the items are calculated to find the highest and the lowest so as to set the directions of the samples and their ranks. deviation, the percentage, the sample direction and the rank of the sample besides the (5) responses to the items.

Awareness
( It appears that the second statement (Discriminating between sounds) has the highest mean (M=3.8), (75.7%), this shows that students' responses move towards the sample direction of the response (Agree) which makes this statement's rank number one, the SD (6.7) represents a far distance from the mean as a result of the differences between the statements' answers. The first statement (Observing individual sounds) comes second in order, it has the second mean (M=3.6). The third statement (Indicate diminished sounds in connected speech.) represents a direction to the response (Neutral) with (M=3.2) mean and (64.7%) of the sample, but (SD =2.3) shows a far distance difference between the students' responses. The statement (Identifying stressed syllables) comes in the fourth rank with (M=3.1) and (61.3%) and its (SD=1.1) demonstrates that the values gathered around the average.

Exploring the Impact of YouTube Videos on Improving Listening Skills for EFL Secondary School Students in Sudan
In the second part of the questionnaire, it is shown that the responses of students (Identifying individual word boundaries), (Identifying words), (Building an idea about how the words are connected in meaningful units), (Pinpointing 'key' words that provide an idea about the topic), (Determining discourse markers which construct and explain attitudes towards speech) and (Inferring the meaning of unknown words), display means in the area of (Agree) because all the statements have no significant differences between values. They also represent their percentages between (70.6%) in the highest score and (75.3%) in the lowest score which display similarities in their responses. (SD=1.75) and (SD=0.17) which indicate that the values tend to be the same as the means and not far from them.  The statements of part three of the questionnaire are designed to evaluate students' ability to get the meaning using their previous information about the topic. The three items (Applying knowledge about the arrangement that appropriate oral interactions frequently take), (Applying knowledge about the arrangements that appropriate oral interactions frequently take) and (Practicing awareness of the topic to hunch what the speaker will say about it), these three items' take the sample direction towards (Agree) because their means (3.6), (3.6) and (

(Chart 4: Working with information)
This similarity indicates that the responses gathered in the central part of the questionnaire, this similarity displays that the direction of the sample moves towards (Agree) without significant differences in their percentages (74.9), (74), (72.34) and (71.1). All of the items on this axis have semi-similar means (3.7), (3.7), and (3.6). The values have a tendency to be somewhat distant from the means as a result of the considerable variations between the replies, as indicated by the standard deviations of the four items, which are as follows: (6.19), (5.37), (5.13) and (5.18).    In the fifth axis the response to the third item (Identifying the speaker's mood/attitude) shows the highest mean (3.7). But it also it displays an odd standard deviation (7.5) which indicates that the values are far from the central tendencies such as the mean. It has the highest percentage (74.9%) and it goes towards (Agree) as a sample direction. The second item (Recognizing the speaker's intention) displays the second highest mean (3.5), but also it displays an odd standard deviation (6.6) which indicates that the values are far from the central tendencies such as the mean. It has the second highest percentage (69.4%) and it goes towards (Agree) as a sample direction.

Axis Five: Collaborating with the speaker
Item 4 (Anticipating what the speaker will say later), and item 5 (Noticing turn-taking signals) and 1 (Pinpointing the speaker's attitude) show means (3.3), (3.3) and (3.2) which explain similarities between students' responses to them, in addition to semi-similar standard  The last item (Developing a return to what the speaker has said.) explains the lowest mean (2.7) which is (Neural), sample direction with percentage (54.1%) tends to be (Disagree). It has the lowest SD (2.0), which indicates that this value has tended towards the central tendencies.

Discussion
The results of the study showed that (66.80%) of the students are aware of the importance of listening skills. And they acquired knowledge and experiences about the role of watching YouTube videos in enhancing their skills. (33.20%) of the students do not have sufficient perception about how these videos can help them, they need more guidance by teachers to increase their awareness about these videos, and they also need to be informed about how video sharing libraries have great roles in enhancing their skills.
(73.33%) of the students can match sounds to language items in an effort to move towards understanding meaning using when watching YouTube videos, and this percentage is not ideal. The students need more practice to achieve an appropriate level in their way of improving listening skills, and this can happen when they watch more videos from native speakers dedicated to pronunciation.
In investigating the ability to understand and clarify the meaning of a spoken message using knowledge of the world, (71.90%) of the students are able to do that, but not at the highest level because (28.10%) cannot interpret the meaning. This indicates that students must be provided with selected videos which might help them to enhance their ability to interpret the meaning of what they listen to.
The ability to deal with what students hear is one of the essential skills in listening, mastering this skill helps the students to communicate with the speaker in an advanced stage of the most required skill is the ability of the students to deal with what they hear, mastering this skill helps the students to interact with the speaker in an advanced stage. (73.09%) of the students said they that watching YouTube videos has improved their ability to deal with information said by speakers, (26.01%) lack the ability to deal with information in when they listen to YouTube videos, these students need more practice using other techniques such as electronic dictionaries in accompany with watching native-speakers' videos.
According to the results, (56.97%) of the students have the ability to communicate with speakers, if he requires a reply, they can interact with him freely. (43.03%) of the students do not have the ability to developing a turn taking techniques to respond to what the speaker has said, they lack the ability to oppose with changes among speakers, in this level, the students need to improve their speaking skills because listening mirrors speaking.

Conclusion
This study's objectives were to (1) investigate the amount to which English as a Foreign Language (EFL) secondary school students in Sudan benefit from watching YouTube videos in order to enhance their listening abilities, and (2) establish the extent to which EFL learners watch YouTube videos in order to improve their listening skills. Students from forty-seven different Sudanese secondary schools who are taking English as a foreign language were each given a questionnaire consisting of four different parts to fill out. According to the results of the research, students of English as a foreign language in Sudan hold a variety of opinions regarding the significance of the role that YouTube plays in enhancing listening abilities. The outcomes of the study indicate that students may always improve their listening abilities by viewing videos on YouTube; however, the study also found that students need to make a greater effort to watch videos that were specifically made for the purpose of language learning. In conclusion, the research came to the conclusion that students of English as a foreign language in Sudan should spend a greater amount of time watching videos on YouTube generated by native speakers in a variety of linguistic genres.

Study limitations and future research directions
Few limitations should be stated and showed for more and additional research. Personality traits of the participants which may have impacts on the results are not measured. The size of the sample participated in this study was not big, and the activities applied by students for their learning process learning were short, both of which factors may limit any broad generalizations being drawn from the results. In my upcoming study, I will address these limitations. Furthermore, a study on the role of YouTube in improving speaking skills will be carried out to fill the gap between the two spoken skills (listening and speaking).

Funding: This research is not funded by any institution
Competing Interests: There is no conflict of interest on the part of the author.