Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Assistant Professor of TEFL, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed all universities to offer all programs online, but not all instructors were prepared for such an abrupt transformation. Online education can be very challenging both to the instructors and the institutions and has several subtleties that make it quite different from the face-to-face programs. There exists an urgent need for studies examining the effectiveness of such programs being offered amid the pandemic in comparison with the same courses held face-to-face. As a result, the present study was an attempt to compare the effectiveness of an online EAP course with that of the same course being offered face-to-face in terms of its three components, namely vocabulary, grammar, and reading comprehension. Sixty-eight students in two groups of online and face-to-face classes took part in this study with a pretest-posttest design. While the two groups were not significantly difference at the onset of the study, the results of the SPANOVAs run showed a significant difference in the case of the grammar component, but not the other two, with the face-to-face group outperforming the online one. The follow-up interviews revealed that learners in online classes often have little interaction with their instructors and peers, and teachers cannot keep learners engaged and active during the class as it is often conducted in the form of a monologue lecture. All this indicates that an online program is not a translation of a face-to-face curriculum into an online format, but it enjoys numerous intricacies that need to be considered by all those involved.
Keywords
Main Subjects
References
Al Ghamdi, A., Samarji, A., & Watt, A. (2016). Essential considerations in distance education in KSA: Teacher immediacy in a virtual teaching and learning environment, International Journal of Information and Education Technology, 6, 17-22. http://dx.doi.org/10.7763/IJIET.2016.V6.651
Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2010). Class differences. Needham, MA: Sloan Consortium.
Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2013). Changing course: Ten years of tracking online education in the United States. Babson Park, MA: Babson Survey Research Group.
Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2014). Grade change: Tracking online education in the United States. San Francisco, CA: Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group, LLC.
Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2016). Online report card tracking online education in the United States. Retrieved from http://onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/onlinereportcard.pdf
Altbach, P. G., Reisberg, L., & Rumbley, L. E. (2019). Trends in global higher education: Tracking an academic revolution. Paris: UNESCO.
Azamnouri, N., Pishghadam, R., Naji Meidani, E. (2020). The role of emotioncy in cognitive load and sentence comprehension of language learners. Issues in Language Teaching, 9(1), 29-55. https://doi.org/10.22054/ilt.2020.51543.485
Azizi, M., & Nemati, M. (2018). Motivating the unmotivated: Making teacher corrective feedback work. Issues in Language Teaching, 7(1), 87-110. http://doi.org/10.22054/ILT.2019.42762.401
Bailey, M., Gosper, M., Ifenthaler, D., Ware, C., & Kretzschma, M. (2018). On-campus, distance or online? Influences on student decision-making about study modes at university. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 34(5), 72–85. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.3781.
Baker, C. (2010). The Impact of instructor immediacy and presence for online student affective learning, cognition, and motivation, Journal of Educators Online, 7(1), 1-30.
Baranik, L. E., Wright, N. A., & Reburn, K. L. (2017). Mentoring relationships in online classes, The Internet and Higher Education, 34, 65-71, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2017.05.001.
Bettinger, E. P., Fox, L., Loeb, S., & Taylor, E. S. (2017). Virtual classrooms: How online college courses affect student success. American Economic Review, 107(9), 2855–2875. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20151193.
Bote-Lorenzo, M. L., & Gomez-Sanchez, E. (2017). Predicting the decrease of engagement indicators in a MOOC. In A. Wise, P. H. Winne, & G. Lynch (Chairs), Proceedings of the seventh international conference on learning analytics & knowledge (pp. 143-147). doi: 10.1145/3027385.3027387
Broadbent, J. (2017). Comparing online and blended learner’s self-regulated learning strategies and academic performance. The Internet and Higher Education, 33, 24–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2017.01.004.
Chen, Y. L., & Hsu, C. C. (2020). Self-regulated mobile game-based English learning in a virtual reality environment. Computers & Education, 154, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103910
Cho, M. H., Kim, Y., & Choi, D. (2017). The effect of self-regulated learning on college students’ perceptions of community of inquiry and affective outcomes in online learning. The Internet and Higher Education, 34, 10–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2017.04.001.
Dietz-Uhler, B., Fisher, A., & Han, A. (2008). Designing courses to promote student retention. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 36(1) 105-112.
Ellis, R. (1999). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fischer, C., Xu, D., Rodriguez, F., Denaro, K., & Warschauer, M. (2020). Effects of course modality in summer session: Enrollment patterns and student performance in face-to-face and online classes. The Internet and Higher Education, 45, 100710, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2019.100710.
Graham, E. E., West, R., & Schaller, K. A. (1992). The association between the relational teaching approach and teacher job satisfaction, Communication Reports, 5, 11-22.
Gunter, G. A. (2007). The effects of the impact of instructional immediacy on cognition and learning in online classes, International Journal of Social Sciences, 2, 196-202.
Guo, S., & Mollering, M. (2016). The implementation of task-based teaching in an online Chinese class through web conferencing. System, 62, 26-38.
Jaggars, S. S., & Xu, D. (2016). How do online course design features influence student performance? Computers & Education, 95, 270–284. https://doi.org/10.1016/jcompedu.2016.01.014
Kucuk, M. (2009). Teacher immediacy behaviors and participation in computer mediated communication. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 10(2), 225-235.
Lakhal, S., De Sherbrooke, U., & Bateman, D. (2017). Blended synchronous delivery mode in graduate programs: A literature review and its implementation in the master teacher program. Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching 10, 47–60. https://doi.org/10.22329/celt.v10i0.4747.
Martín-Gutierrez, J., Mora, C. E., Anorbe-Díaz, B., & Gonzalez-Marrero, A. (2017). Virtual technologies trends in education. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 13(2), 469–486
Miller, A. N., Katt, J. A., Brown, T., Sivo, S. A. (2014). The relationship of instructor self-disclosure, nonverbal immediacy, and credibility to student incivility in the college classroom, Communication Education, 63, 1-16.
Raes, A., Vanneste, P., Pieters, M., Windey, I., Den Noortgate, W. V., & Depaepe, F. (2020). Learning and instruction in the hybrid virtual classroom: An investigation of students’ engagement and the effect of quizzes, Computers & Education, 143, 103682, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103682.
Ramsey, D., Evans, J., & Levy, M. (2016). Preserving the seminar experience. Journal of Political Science Education, 12(3), 256–267. https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2015.1077713.
Rasheed, R. A., Kamsin, A., & Abdullah, N. A. (2020). Challenges in the online component of blended learning: A systematic review. Computers & Education, 144, 103701, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103701.
Song, H., Kim, J., & Luo, W. (2016). Teacher-student relationship in online classes: A role of teacher self-disclosure. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 436-443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.07.037
Stoltz, M., & Bryant, K. (2013). Does the amount and relevance of teacher self-disclosure affect student cognitive learning? In P. Dixon (Ed.), Proceedings of the Georgia Communication Association Convention No. 83 (pp. 11-16), Georgia Communication Association, Inc.
Tseng, W. T., Liou, H. J., & Chu, H. C. (2020). Vocabulary learning via virtual environments: Learner autonomy and collaboration. System, 88, 102190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2019.102190
Vesisenaho, M., Juntunen, M., Hakkinen, P., Poysa-Tarhonen, J., Fagerlund, J., Miakush, I., & Parviainen, T. (2019). Virtual reality in education: Focus on the role of emotions and physiological reactivity. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 12(1), 1–15.
Weitze, C. L. (2015). Pedagogical innovation in teacher teams: An organizational learning design model for continuous competence development. In A. Jefferies, & M. Cubric (Eds.). Proceedings of 14th European Conference on e-Learning ECEL-2015 (pp. 629-638). Reading: Academic Conferences and Publishing International.
Xu, D., & Jaggars, S. S. (2013). The impact of online learning on students’ course outcomes: Evidence from a large community and technical college system. Economics of Education Review, 37, 46–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2013.08.001.
Xu, D., & Jaggars, S. S. (2014). Performance gaps between online and face-to-face courses: Differences across types of students and academic subject areas. The Journal of Higher Education, 85(5), 633–659. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2014.11777343.
)