English from My Feed: Exploring Health Influencers asInformal ESP Input for Indonesian Learners

Abstract

 In the age of social media, English is increasingly encountered outside formal education, particularly through digital platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), and YouTube. This study investigates how Indonesian students enrolled in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses engage with English-language content from health influencers and how such exposure may function as informal ESP input. Using a descriptive qualitative approach, this research explores students’ perceptions of learning English through health-related content on their social
media feeds. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and reflective journal entries from a purposive sample of ESP learners of vocational school from some majors. The findings reveal that many learners are exposed to medical, fitness, and wellness vocabulary through
short videos, captions, and infographics, which they perceive as more relatable and easier to understand than conventional ESP materials. Participants also reported increased motivation and
contextual understanding when engaging with real-life content from influencers. This study suggests that social media, when critically integrated, may serve as a valuable supplementary resource for ESP learning, especially in promoting incidental vocabulary acquisition and raising learner autonomy.