THE USE OF WHATSAPP AS AN EMERGENCY REMOTE TEACHING TOOL IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING

The pandemic period has an impact on learning, and thus, the learning during the pandemic must be carried out remotely. In this context, distance learning requires an internet connection and good preparation for online learning. However, not all schools have standardized online learning platforms. Therefore, the online learning which is not prepared well is called Emergency Remote Teaching or ERT. WhatsApp is one of the ERT learning platforms used by tutors. This research was aimed to discuss the advantages of learning through WhatsApp and the activities carried out in ERT using WhatsApp as an alternative learning media. Using a qualitative approach and descriptive qualitative research design, this study collected data from five high school English tutors who had experiences in using WhatsApp as an ERT tool. The first finding indicate that many advantages of using WhatsApp as an ERT are including 1) facilitating group work activities in online learning, 2) providing flexible learning platform, 3) maintaining easy communication between tutors and students, 4) accessing online material, and 5) participating students in online learning. Moreover, regarding finding 2, there are several activities that can be conducted in learning English using WhatsApp? They are 1) facilitiating discourse, pair and group speaking practice, and 2) sharing files and documents.