Using Instagram Photo Caption to Encourage Students to Write in
English: Benefits and Obstacles
Elis Homsini Maolida and Yessy Purnamasari
English Education Study Program, FKIP, Suryakancana University, Cianjur, Indonesia
Keywords: Instagram, photo caption, writing.
Abstract: Social media has been part of students’ life nowadays as the tool of communication. However, its use as
learning media, especially to improve their English writing skills, has not been optimized yet. This study is
aimed to analyze (1) the use of photo caption in Instagram as an effort to encourage student to write in English
(2) the benefits of using photo caption in Instagram to encourage students to write in English (3) students’
obstacles of writing Instagram photo caption in English. This study involves an English lecturer and 52
students in English Education Study Program in a university in Cianjur. A case study design was employed
and the data were obtained from observation of four weeks learning process by integrating Instagram,
questionnaire, and students’ interview. The data then were analyzed qualitatively. The findings reveal that the
use of photo caption in Instagram has benefited students in at least three aspects. In terms of writing stimulus,
the presence of followers or audiences has motivated students to write effective, interesting, and memorable
English caption. In addition, the presence of photo has aided the students in constructing their ideas in writing.
Furthermore, by reading and learning from their friend’s caption, the students admit that it can enrich their
vocabularies and diction as well as other language features. However, the students face several obstacles in
writing caption in English such as limited space of caption especially for high-achiever students, lack of
vocabulary and grammatical constraint.
1 INTRODUCTION
Many students admit that writing is much more
difficult than speaking. It is not only because they do
not yet have a good writing habit(Maolida&Nuraini,
2014) which likely results in poor writing fluency, but
also because they face several problems of writing
mechanics such as vocabulary and grammatical
constraint (Maolida, 2015) . Regarding this problem,
teachers make various efforts to encourage students
to write more, one of the efforts is through utilizing
social media.
Nowadays, when social media has been an
integral part of students’ daily interaction and
communication, there is a need for teachers to adjust
to the ways students learn.In this case, Blair&Serafini
(2014) state that today’s students tend to demand
more activities that are engaging so “as educators,
embracing technology and using socialmedia
networks to leverage engagement these applications
can improve the delivery of content and retention”
(p.4). This is expected to be an effective tool to
facilitate today’s students, digital natives, to learn
better. It is also hoped that by integrating technologies
in the learning process, students can be more active
and more engaged (Sarkar et.al, 2017).
Instagram is one of social media that is familiar
and widely used among university students in our
context. That was one of the reasons the lecturer
utilized Instagram for students in learning process.
Instagram is described as “a photo-sharing mobile
application that allows users to take pictures, apply
filters to them, and share them on the platform
itself.Instagram has over 400 million active monthly
users who shared over 40 billion pictures”(Alhabash
and Ma, 2017 in Anggraeni, 2017, p.68). With its one
of main features of photo sharing, Instagram can be
used to support the learning process of second and
foreign language writing by optimizing the image in
the form of photo. In this case, Whiddon (2016)
writes that role of image is supportive for L2 writing
learning and her research shows that students have
positive perception toward the effect of image on
their comprehension of their friends’ composition,
also their friends’ comprehension of their own
composition.
In Indonesia context, Instagram has been used by
teachers in various education levels, especially in
116
Maolida, E. and Purnamasari, Y.
Using Instagram Photo Caption to Encourage Students to Write in English: Benefits and Obstacles.
DOI: 10.5220/0007163001160121
In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference
on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 116-121
ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

teaching writing. Listiani (2016) compared the
effectiveness of learning writing through Instagram
with learning writing by using teacher centered
approach among low and high motivated students. In
her case, the students learnt writing recount text in
junior high school level. The results show that
Instagram use was able to improve students with high
as well as low motivation that led to their writing
quality. In higher levels, Handayani (2017) conducted
a research focusing on the university students’
attitude toward Instagram in writing class. Her
findings revealed that the students gave positive
responses toward Instagram utilization. She stated
that Instagram can guide students to write effectively
and it facilitates students and teachers to
communicate in and outside the classroom.
Furthermore, she asserts that Instagram enables
students to create writing ideas that are contextual and
relevant as well as let students have an enjoyable
learning experience. In line with this, Anggraeni
(2017) confirms the benefits of Instagram use for
learning writing as well as students’ positive
responses toward its implementation. However, she
asserts, the use of Instagram also had its weaknesses
such as technical problems that relate to wifi
connection and other barriers.
Regarding the studies on Instagram use in
learning process, Anggraeni (2017) suggests that
there is a need of another investigation that is
conducted in different context to deepen and add
information regarding students’ perspectives on
Instagram use. In that case, this study focuses on the
use of instagram to encourage students to write in
English and their responses toward the use of
Instagram photo caption. It also reveals the
challenges faced by the students in its
implementation.
2 METHODS
This is a case study focusing on the use of Instagram
Photo caption to encourage students to write in
English. It involves two English classes consisted of
52 students and a lecturer. The data were mainly
obtained from observation of 4 weeks learning
process by integrating Instagram,. The observation
also included observing the students’ postings in
Instagram. In another words, students’ captions in
Instagram that related to the topics given as the task
in the class were observed and some of them were
documented.
Besides, questionnaires were distributed to dig
students’ responses regarding the benefits that they
got from the use of Instagram caption to support their
writing process as well as the obstacles in its process.
Furthermore, some students from both classes were
interviewed to confirm teh answers collected from
questionnaires and add some information needed for
this study. The data then were analyzed qualitatively
by integrating and triangulating the results from
observation, questionnaires and students’ interview.
3 FINDINGS AND DICUSSIONS
3.1 The use of photo caption in Instagram
as an effort to encourage student to
write in English
The task of writing English captions in Instagram to
publish students’ writing on specific topics was
started with the introduction of Instagram as a
learning media in the classroom and the explanation
of the topic, brainstorming, outlining and discussion
about several aspects that need to be included in their
writing.
In this case, the students were asked to utilize their
instagram to publish their work with the hope that this
technology integration motivate students to be more
active and more engaged (Sarkar et.al, 2017) in
communicating their ideas through writing. Since
some students had not had an instagram account, a
brief explanation was given on the steps of signing up
for an ccount, also steps and suggestions to optimize
the caption to publish students’ work including the
explanation and the function of some features such as
hastags, tags, and other important features in creating
a successful caption.
As a result, all students have instagram account
and publish their work by posting photo and its
caption in instagram.
Using Instagram Photo Caption to Encourage Students to Write in English: Benefits and Obstacles
117

Figure 1: Example of Student’s Photo Caption on Inspiring Person.
The figure shows an example of a student’s photo
caption. The captions tells the readers about her
inspiring person, an administration officer in English
Education department, whose work helps all students
and lecturers. In her opinion, the officer is someone
who works really hard to make everything works,
especially in English department. She also mentions
some of the officer’s personal qualities that makes
him deserve to be the inspiring person.
The other students post about many different
figures as their inspiring person , start from those who
choose their friends to be their inspiring person, their
lecturers, family and other figures. When the students
publish their writing through photo caption, they tag
their lecturer and their classmates so the writer can
get comments, responses as well as feedback.
Different with previous study that focused on
writing recount text (Listiani, 2016), through the
caption, the students in this study do not only describe
the picture but also support their description with
strong arguments. With various personalized topics
such as inspiring person, the best place to eat in
Cianjur, the best movie I have ever watched, and
some local issues, the students are expected to be able
to write argumentative text which is supported with a
good description.
Figure 2: Example of Student’s Photo Caption on The Best Place to Eat in Cianjur.
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
118

Figure 2 shows a student’s photo caption about the
best place to eat in Cianjur. The student describes the
place and writes his reasons and arguments of why
the place deserves to visit and why this place should
be considered as the best spot for food.
Figure 3: Example of Student’s Photo Caption on Three Reasons Why You Should Watch the Movie.
The picture illustrates how a student posts a picture of
her favorite movie ‘Habibie and Ainun’, creates a
caption that describes what the movie is about and the
rationales why this movie is worthwhile to watch.
3.2 The benefits of using photo caption in
Instagram to encourage students to
write in English
The results of observation, questionnaires and
students’ interview reveal that the students obtain
several benefits of using Instagram photo caption in
encouraging and optimizing their efforts to write in
English. First benefit relates to its strength of the
presence of more audience to stimulate and motivate
students to give their optimal effort to write an
efficient and interesting English caption with the
provided character space. One of the students states:
When I want to update a picture on IG I have to
think what the caption that reflect the picture and I
want to make it so memorable. So the caption is
needed and in the end I end up think how to write
good and my followers enjoy my pictures with good
caption. And it helps me in writing skill #Student 2#.
Similar with the statement, many students admit
that since their caption will be read by
audience/readers that they tag, including their lecturer
as well as their followers who may also read the
caption, they feel that they need to write better
posting than they usually do. Comparing to only
submitting their writing to the lecturer, publishing
their work through instagram has more strength in
pushing the students to have more preparation before
they publish their writing. The role of wider audience
than they usually find in the class give the students
more force to write better English writing.
Besides, the presence of photo/picture in
instagram helps students in constructing their writing
ideas as described by the following statement:
I learn to make a good caption using English
language and I try to create a suitable caption for
every picture I upload in my IG #Student 10#
In this case, many studies have unveiled that
picture often helps students to create writing concept
as well as develop it (e.g.,Whiddon, 2016). This
benefit is also admitted by the students that the picture
that they post along with the caption helps them to
avoid the writer’s block because what they write
represent the picture. By looking at the person’s
picture that they write about, it helps the students to
imagine and remember the details about the person
including their personal qualities that most students
describe in their caption. Furthermore, some students
also feel more confident since their writing is
compelemented by a picture so they feel the picture
can help them convey the message that they write in
the caption to the readers.
Furthermore, the students disclose that the task of
publishing their work through instagram caption to
Using Instagram Photo Caption to Encourage Students to Write in English: Benefits and Obstacles
119

certain extent, helps them enrich their vocabulary,
diction and other language features due to the
opportunity to read other classmates’ captions, as
revelead by the following statement:
l read my friends caption from their Instagram
account and it makes me get some vocabularies
#Student 9#
In this case, the curiousity to read others’ captions
because they are tagged or not, has led the students to
compare what they have written with their friends’
writing and this, helps students get new vocabularies,
diction, idioms, and other language expressions from
their friends’ posting.
Those three benefits of utilizing Instagram as a
learning media in writing class confirm the findings
from previous studies (Anggraeni, 2017; Listiani,
2016; Handayani, 2017). The combination of more
audience and opportunity to read and learn from their
friends’ captions, for example, have motivated
students to learn many aspects such as diction and
grammar, also write better captions and it can lead to
what Listiani (2016) mentions as improvement of
their writing quality. Besides, the role of picture has
helped students to construct their writing ideas and
concept so the students can write content that is
termed by Handayani (2017) as contextual and
relevant.
3.3 Stud ents’ obstacles of writing
Instagram photo caption in English
In the process of writing and publishing the result
through photo caption in instagram, the students
faced some obstacles. The first obstacle is due to the
limited characters provided by instagram. This
obstacle is revealed by some students, especially
those who are high achievers.
Another problem is about the limited space to write,
so when I got my mood to write more but the words
space limited. In my previous assignment, I was
trying to decrease or deleted some words or even
sentences because of it. #Student 11#
Some students state that it is challenging to describe
a picture in instagram caption since isntagram limits
the characters that they can type. They have more
ideas and words to express but some of them should
be omitted for space reason. For few students who do
not want to limit their ideas, they even post the
caption twice with the second caption continues the
ideas they write on the first caption.
Figure 4: A Student Posts Two Captions to Describe a Picture due to Limited Space.
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
120

The figure shows how a student writes two
continous captions to support the posted picture,
voicing his arguments about a growing number of
factories in his city that lead to several negative
effects for society. The student finally decides to
posts two captions since he needs more space to
express his ideas in describing the picture and his
arguments.
Another obstacle relates to their writing skills in
general such as limited diction and grammatical
constraint.
Choosing the diction, also when I compose a caption
in English I feel my grammatical should be correct
and it is a burden for me #Student 3#.
In this case, some students admit that they have
ideas in their mind yet they do not know how to
express those by using appropriate and proper
vocabularies. Morever, their grammar constraint adds
the problem, many students admit that they are not
good at grammar so they often feel unsure whether
the grammar they use in their writing is correct or not.
Those vocabulary and grammatical problems also
become obstacles in other EFL writing classes
(Maolida & Nuraini, 2014; Maolida, 2015).
Sometimes, the diction and grammatical barriers
decrease students’ writing confidence. Those
problems are admitted to influence their writing mood
and bad writing mood worsens their writing
creativity.
4 CONCLUSIONS
This study focuses on instagram photo caption use to
encourage students to write in English including its
benefits for students and the obstacles faced by the
students. The results show that the students got
several advantages from the implementation. First, it
stimulates and motivates students to write an English
caption that is efficient and attention grabbing since
there are audiences and followers who are assumed
will read the caption. Besides, the use of photo in
instagram together with caption helps students create
and develop their writing ideas. Additionally,
instagram photo caption is admitted to help them in
enriching their voabularies and diction since they can
read their friends’ captions so they can learn from
each other. In spite of this, students admit that there
are obstacles as well as weaknesses of writing caption
in English in Instagram such as limited characters
provided in making caption, students’ limitation of
vocabulary and diction, insufficient grammar which
sometimes influence their mood of writing.
REFERENCES
Anggraeni, C. W. 2017. Students’ Perspective toward the
Use of Instagram in Writing Class.Proceeding of 1st
English Language and Literature International
Conference (ELLiC).
Blair, R. & Serafini, T. M. 2014. Integration of Education:
Using Social Media Networks to Engage Students.
Journal of Systemics,Cybernetics and Informatics,
Vol.12, No.6.
Handayani, F. 2017. Students’ Attitude toward Using
Instagram in Teaching Writing. JURNAL
EDUCATIVE: Journal of Educational Studie, Vol 2,
No 1.
Listiani, G. 2016. The Effectiveness of Instagram Writing
Compared to Teacher Centered Writing to Teach
Recount Text to students with High and Low
Motivation. ELT FORUM 5 (1), retrieved from
http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt.
Maolida, E. H. & Nuraini, R. M. 2014. The Implementation
of Dialogue Journal in an EFL Young Learner
Classroom (A Case Study in an English Course in
Bandung). Proceeding The Seventh Conference of
Applied Linguistics. Language Center UPI.
Maolida, E. H. 2015. Dialogue Journal in Two EFL Writing
Classrooms: Its Benefits and Challenges (A Case Study
in a University in Cianjur). Jurnal JOEPALLT Vol. 3,
pp. 33-53.
Sarkar, N., Ford, W., & Manzo, C. 2017. Engaging Digital
Natives through Social Learning. Journal of Systemics,
Cybernetics and Informatics, Vol.15, No.2. 1-4.
Whiddon, J. 2016. Instafrench: Investigating the Use of
Social Media and Student-Selected Images to Support
L2 Writing. Thesis, Georgia State University. Retrieved
from http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/mcl_theses/21.
Using Instagram Photo Caption to Encourage Students to Write in English: Benefits and Obstacles
121