Traditional face to face and web‐based tutorials: a study of university students’ perception blended mode learning

Traditional face to face and web‐based tutorials: a study of university students’ perception blended mode learning

This study reports the results of a survey on the needs and attitudes of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners towards blended learning (an on-line course combined with off-line lecture classes) for an on-line general English course at the university level. Blended mode (Graham, 2006; Singh & Reed, 2001) is a growing field as an alternative to on-line or off-line only programs in language learning and teaching (Mantyla, 2001; Bersin, 2004). A survey was conducted with 33 off-line and 51 on-line university students, aiming to find useful information for developing distinctive blended learning models, one for on-line and the other for off-line environments. The findings are as follows: the two groups were similar in that i) distraction was thought of as the biggest disadvantage of on-line classes, ii) more than 42% of the students wanted to include some sort of off-line lecture combined with on-line contents, iii) about 60% of the students were willing to attend off-line lectures while taking an on-line course, and iv) the most preferred type of off-line class was such that the class meet biweekly for about two hours each time for team projects or assignment presentations and Q&A. Differences were also found: i) off-line students preferred off-line classes to on-line classes for general English courses (72% vs. 21%) whereas on-line students did not show such a preference (50% vs. 50%), ii) off-line students practically expected to attend off-line class more frequently than on-line students, and iii) on-line students showed a slight tendency to prefer Korean‐American teachers and English native speakers to Korean teachers whereas off-line students did not show such a preference tendency. The results provide positive evidence for university students’needs as well as useful information for implementing distinctive blended mode in EFL courses for on-line and off-line university students.

This study reports the results of a survey on the needs and attitudes of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners towards blended learning (an on-line course combined with off-line lecture classes) for an on-line general English course at the university level. Blended mode (Graham, 2006; Singh & Reed, 2001) is a growing field as an alternative to on-line or off-line only programs in language learning and teaching (Mantyla, 2001; Bersin, 2004). A survey was conducted with 33 off-line and 51 on-line university students, aiming to find useful information for developing distinctive blended learning models, one for on-line and the other for off-line environments. The findings are as follows: the two groups were similar in that i) distraction was thought of as the biggest disadvantage of on-line classes, ii) more than 42% of the students wanted to include some sort of off-line lecture combined with on-line contents, iii) about 60% of the students were willing to attend off-line lectures while taking an on-line course, and iv) the most preferred type of off-line class was such that the class meet biweekly for about two hours each time for team projects or assignment presentations and Q&A. Differences were also found: i) off-line students preferred off-line classes to on-line classes for general English courses (72% vs. 21%) whereas on-line students did not show such a preference (50% vs. 50%), ii) off-line students practically expected to attend off-line class more frequently than on-line students, and iii) on-line students showed a slight tendency to prefer Korean‐American teachers and English native speakers to Korean teachers whereas off-line students did not show such a preference tendency. The results provide positive evidence for university students’needs as well as useful information for implementing distinctive blended mode in EFL courses for on-line and off-line university students.