Abstract

The pupils in this 21st century era are the members of Generation Z and Alpha who witness the rapid development of technologies. In order to cater the learning needs of these generations, WhatsApp, a mobile messaging app was chosen in this study as the technological tool to teach narrative writing. This study attempted to explore the perception of Year 6 pupils towards the use of WhatsApp in narrative writing and challenges that they encountered in learning narrative writing through WhatsApp. Eight Year 6 pupils from one primary school in Jempol, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia were involved in this case study and the data were collected using document analysis, focus group interviews and field notes. The findings revealed that all the participants perceived WhatsApp as engaging, easy and convenient, served as language support, provided peer feedback and support and increased confidence in English. The challenges that they encountered were financial constraint, physical distraction and mobile phone constraint. The findings of this study are hoped to provide insights to the educators on the integration of mobile messaging apps in language learning.