PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

Facebook (FB) is the most popular social networking sites (SNS) in the world at the moment. This factor alone has prompted many educational researchers to investigate how Facebook can be utilized for educational purposes, focusing on the social interaction between users, particularly in the higher education contexts. In terms of language teaching, researchers are also beginning to be aware of Facebook's potential to enhance and enrich English language teaching and learning at all levels since the written language is the main form of communication in the Facebook environment. Driven by these trends and practices, the researchers carried out an international study involving Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Maldives to investigate and compare higher education students' perceptions of Facebook as an environment for learning English. Using survey questionnaire, we find that learners from the four countries view Facebook as an online environment that encourages and facilitates incidental learning of English, but with a few variations according to the countries. Several implications on the use of Facebook for English language teaching and learning in higher education are also discussed.