Examining the
relative effectiveness of online, blended and
face-to-face teaching modes for promoting EFL teacher
professional development
Qiang
Sun
Henan
Polytechnic University, China
Lawrence
Jun Zhang (corresponding author)
University
of Auckland, New Zealand
Received:
23/3/2023 / Accepted: 9/9/2023
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30827/portalin.vi2023c.29619
ISSN
paper edition: 1697-7467, ISSN digital edition: 2695-8244
Abstract: Teacher professional development
(PD) is an essential part for teachers’ professional growth for the quality
provision of education to their students. Nonetheless, we need to find out
effective ways of professional development. This study was conducted to achieve
this goal by exploring the effectiveness of three teaching modes, online,
blended, and face-to-face delivery, of an EFL course in a Chinese university,
with the ultimate aim of promoting their PD. Three
intact English classes were treated differently with Class 1 receiving online
teaching, Class 2 receiving blended teaching, and Class 3 receiving
face-to-face teaching. Their learning outcome was measured by an
end-of-semester test. One-way ANOVA results showed that the face-to-face (onsite)
teaching class performed significantly better than the other two classes. Focus
group interviews of students revealed more drawbacks of online teaching than
benefits. The findings suggest that online teaching, as a new teaching mode
that has gained popularity due to the pandemic, cannot replace face-to-face
teaching in terms of students’ learning outcomes and their perceptions toward
online teaching currently. Such findings provide food for thought for EFL
teachers with regard to their own professional
development.
Keywords: online teaching, blended teaching,
face-to-face teaching, teacher professional development, English as a foreign
language (EFL)
Examinar la eficacia relativa de los modelos de enseñanza en línea, mixta y presencial para promover el desarrollo profesional de los profesores de idiomas extranjeros
Resumen: El presente trabajo trata de averiguar a través de un estudio experimental la eficacia de tres modalidades de enseñanza, a saber, la modalidad en línea, la mixta y la presencial, en las aulas de inglés universitarias chinas, con el fin de ayudar a los profesores de inglés a conocer las ventajas y desventajas de las modalidades referidas y, de ahí facilitar su desarrollo profesional. En el experimento se han seleccionado primero tres grupos de estudiantes con los que se han adoptado respectivamente la modalidad de enseñanza en línea, la combinada y la presencial, para luego examinar el rendimiento de los estudiantes en el examen semestral. Los resultados del análisis de la varianza con un factor (ANOVA) conducen a la conclusión de que el grupo que ha recibido la modalidad de enseñanza presencial ha rendido mejor en comparación con los otros dos grupos, mientras que las entrevistas en grupo con los estudiantes dejan en claro que las modalidades tanto en línea como mixta constan de más perjuicios que beneficios. Los resultados del estudio demuestran que, siendo un modelo pedagógico emergente y popular en la epidemia, la enseñanza en línea aún no es capaz de reemplazar la enseñanza presencial en términos del rendimiento y la cognición de alumnos en el estudio. Y las conclusiones de este artículo sirven como referencias para el desarrollo y la formación de los profesores de inglés.
Palabras clave: enseñanza en línea, enseñanza mixta, enseñanza presencial, el desarrollo y la formación del docente, inglés como lengua extranjera
1. Introduction
Online teaching, also known
as distance teaching or internet-based teaching, is to teach students via
digital technology. Through the network, students and teachers can carry out
teaching activities even if they are thousands of miles away. Compared with
traditional classroom teaching, online teaching sets no strict time and space
limitations, supplies considerable high-quality learning resources, and
provides vast flexibility and convenience for teaching (Kebritchi et al., 2017;
Shonfeld & Ronen, 2015; Torres-Vallejos et al., 2021). Online teaching,
however, is critiqued by teachers and educational researchers who claim online
teaching cripples teacher-student interaction (DeLacey
& Leonard, 2002; Kelly et al., 2009; Smith., 2016; Ubell., 2017), and fails
to equip young students with the necessary emotional and social skills for
their comprehensive development (for example, Dong et al., 2020; Mumtaz, 2001;
Yan et al., 2020). To solve these problems, a new teaching model, blended
teaching, was introduced as an alternative to online teaching. Blended
teaching, by its name, integrated online teaching with face-to-face teaching,
which aimed to employ the benefits of computer-based technology and facilitate
teacher-student interaction to the utmost (Graham et al., 2005). After two new
teaching modes emerged, educational researchers and practitioners conducted a
series of studies to compare the effect of them with traditional face-to-face
teaching on students’ learning outcomes. However, multiple results are obtained
(Du et. al., 2022; Larson & Sung, 2019; Pei & Wu, 2015). The results
are not surprising because Technology Acceptance Theory informs us that a new
application can be accepted only if it is perceived as useful and easy to use.
In China, the Ministry of
Education launched a new national education plan entitled “6-Excellent and
1-Top” to promote the development of university education (Ministry of
Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2019). The plan calls on Chinese
universities to build high-quality online teaching and blended teaching courses
by using various outstanding online educational resources while developing
first-class offline teaching courses (also “face-to-face” teaching). It
suggests that universities should adopt an appropriate teaching method from
among online teaching, face-to-face teaching, and blended teaching, to better
suit students’ needs. Against this background, this study explored the
effectiveness of three language teaching approaches, online teaching, blended
teaching, and offline teaching, in a Chinese EFL University English course in order to help teachers understand the pros and cons of
these teaching modes, with the ultimate aim of promoting their professional
development (PD).
2. Literature
review
2.1. Technology
Acceptance Model
Based on the theory of
Reasoned Action, Davis (1986) proposed the Technology Acceptance Model to
predict the acceptability of a tool. This model suggests that two factors,
perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use,
determine the acceptability of a tool. Perceived usefulness is defined as the
extent to which a person believes that the use of a system will enhance his
performance while perceived ease of use is termed as the degree to which a
person believes that the use of a system will be effortless (Davis,1989). The
Technology Acceptance Model advocates that an application perceived to be more
useful and easier to use will be more likely to be accepted by users.
In this study, the
Technology Acceptance Model was employed to elucidate the comparison results
among three teaching modes, online teaching, blended teaching and face-to-face
teaching and the way students perceive two new teaching modes, online teaching and blended teaching. According to the Technology
Acceptance Model, the acceptability of new technology is determined by two
factors, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of
use. Likewise, a new teaching method will be only accepted if students believe
that using the new teaching method will improve their learning outcome and the
new teaching method will not be troublesome for them to use.
2.2. Online
teaching
Online teaching refers to
any educational undertaking that predominantly utilizes the Internet to deliver
coursework, assessments, and assignments from teachers to students. Through the
network, teachers and students can carry out all types of teaching activities
even if they are thousands of miles away. Online teaching is popular due to its
multiple benefits such as its flexibility and convenience (Kebritchi et al.,
2017). Online teaching renders students an option to complete their course
lectures from a multitude of accessible sites and gives no time constraint to
access course learning (Shonfeld & Ronen, 2015). Online teaching is also
applicable to environments where face-to-face teaching is infeasible owing to
the occurrence of fatal infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Meanwhile, online
teaching also has drawbacks. Online teaching requires students to be highly
self-disciplined, manage their time properly and avoid being distracted by the
external environment since teachers are not able to supervise them as they do
in the on-site courses. Besides, online teaching does not develop students’
verbal communication skills as face-to-face teaching does. In online teaching
courses, students do not need to attend class, discuss with their classmates and answer questions in classrooms. Thus, they
are not well-trained in their verbal communication skills.
As online education is
widely adopted throughout the world, educational researchers also began to
explore the effect of online teaching. Rusanganwa (2013), for example, explored
whether blended teaching with ICT integrated facilitated language teaching and
learning by comparing two teaching modes, computer-assisted language teaching
and traditional classroom teaching, in delivering English technical words in an
ESP course to Rwandan undergraduates. Rusanganwa came to the
conclusion that using multimedia had a significant effect on improving
students’ vocabulary learning outcomes. Miyazoe and Anderson (2010)
investigated the effectiveness of various online writing activities in an
English as a foreign language (EFL) course in a Japanese university. They found
that the multiple online writing activities indeed improved students’ ability
to differentiate English writing styles, intrigued students’ learning interests
and met their other various demands.
2.3. Blended
teaching
In contrast to online
teaching and traditional face-to-face teaching, blended teaching integrates
traditional face-to-face teaching with internet technology which is based on
information communication technologies with the purpose of striking a balance between
online teaching and traditional face-to-face teaching (Dziuban et al., 2018;
Garrison & Kanuka, 2004). Compared with online teaching and face-to-face
classroom teaching, blended learning makes use of a wide range of learning
resources, including some effective online learning materials, which enriches
students’ learning content and improves their learning satisfaction (Dziuban et
al 2011; Liu et al., 2022; Means et al., 2013). It also provides opportunities
for students to have face-to-face discussions on the spot if they cannot carry
out their learning task online or they still have
questions that cannot be resolved on the internet.
Blended learning, hailed as
a new normal way in contemporary education, is widely applied in diverse ways
throughout the world since its emergence (Alshawish et al, 2021; Dziuban et
al., 2018; Jiang et al., 2021). Studies around the effect of blended teaching
in the field of language teaching were extensively reported accordingly. These
studies almost encompassed all language skills. For example, Jiang et al.
(2021) employed an intervention study in an English listening course to explore
whether the blended teaching mode could enhance Chinese EFL junior high school
students’ learning outcomes. The result showed that blended teaching had a
great impact on enhancing students’ listening performance. Kazakoff et al.
(2018) also reported that the blended learning mode was conducive to the
development of English learners’ reading ability by investigating primary
school students in the USA.
2.4. Research on
comparing online teaching, blended teaching and face-to-face teaching
With the emergence of
online teaching and blended teaching, researchers embarked on multiple studies
to compare them with traditional face-to-face teaching in mainstream education.
Most of these studies compare three teaching modes in early childhood,
mathematics, medicine education, and multiple results are obtained (Atwa et.
al., 2022; Larson & Sung, 2019; Yen et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2022). For
example, Yen et al. (2018) made a comparison of face-to-face, online, and
blended teaching modes in an undergraduate Child Development course to examine
whether there were differences in student learning outcomes among the three
modes. It is revealed that no significant differences were made in students’
academic outcomes by three modes. Similarly, Larson and Sung (2019) conducted a
study to compare three teaching modes in delivering a mathematics course,
reporting that there were no significant differences among the three modes.
Atwa et. al. (2022) explored teachers and students’ preferences of the three
modes, online education, blended education and
face-to-face education by doing a mixed-method study on medical students and
teachers. The conclusion was that medical students and teachers perceived that
blended learning and face-to-face learning were acceptable in medical education
while online education was only acceptable in theoretical teaching and in some
clinically oriented teaching. Zhang et al. (2022) conducted a comparative study
on online teaching and face-to-face teaching for cultivating Chinese students’
innovative abilities and pointed out that the two modes had their own
advantages and disadvantages. Based on this result, they suggested that a
blended teaching combining online teaching and face-to-face teaching might
better promote the cultivation of students’ ability for creative idea
generation.
From what has been
discussed, it is noted that few studies were conducted to explore three
teaching modes in foreign language teaching. In order to
remedy this gap, we are going to make a comparative study about the
effectiveness of three teaching modes on Chinese university students who learn
English as a foreign language in China. We attempt to address the following two
questions:
1. Are there significant
differences in students’ examinations in terms of three teaching modes in EFL
classrooms?
2. What are students’
perceptions about online teaching and blended teaching in university EFL
learning?
3. Research design
This study adopted an
explanatory sequential mixed methods design which included collecting
quantitative data first and then collecting qualitative data to help explain or
elaborate on the quantitative results (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). The
study contained a quantitative component (scores from the semester test) and a
qualitative component (focus group discussions for students). Specifically,
this study set up three experimental conditions where online teaching, blended
teaching and face-to-face teaching were operated in three intact classes
respectively. The quantitative phase of the study was followed up with focus
group discussions to explore students’ perceptions about online and blended
teaching.
3.1 Context
The study was conducted in
a Chinese comprehensive university located in the central part of China, where
an English undergraduate programme lasting four years was offered. All students
enrolling in this programme had learned English for 9 years approximately and
had possessed fundamental English knowledge and skills, belonging to upper
intermediate English learners in a general sense. In order to
obtain a bachelor's degree, students majoring in this programme had to complete
a group of English courses. One of the core compulsory courses was
Comprehensive English, taught in the first two years, whose goal is to enlarge
students’ vocabulary, strengthen their grammar knowledge, promote their reading
skills, listening and speaking ability, and develop their writing and
translation skills. Accordingly, in this all-embraced course, almost all
language skills such as reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, listening and
speaking, were integrated and synthesized and students
needed to cover all of the above-mentioned language skills and knowledge in
their classes. This course was taught in the first two years and there were two
semesters for each year. And Comprehensive English covered four semesters. For
each semester, there were 32 sessions and two sessions each week, totaling 64
hours of in-class instruction. At the end of each semester, there was a
standardized English test to evaluate students’ course performance.
3.2 Participants
Participants in this study
were ninety EFL sophomores from three parallel intact classes majoring in
English at a BA programme enrolled in a Comprehensive English course in this
university with thirty students from each class. One class acting as the control
class still adopted traditional face-to-face teaching while the other two
classes working as experimental classes utilized online teaching modes and
blended teaching mode respectively. Students were of the same age range between
19 and 22, who were supposed to have learned English for eleven years since
they were third-grade primary school students. Students were assured that their
participation would be completely voluntary and had the right to attend the
class without participating in the study whereby their grades would not be
included in the study. As a result, all students volunteered to participate in
the study and their consent forms were obtained. Six students in online
teaching class and five in blended teaching class voluntarily sat focus group interviews
to explore their views about three teaching modes.
3.3 Instruments for
data collection
In Phase one, a testing
paper was used to assess students’ course learning outcomes. The testing paper
designed in accordance with the goals of this course basically examined
students’ language knowledge including their vocabulary, grammar, reading and translation
skills. It includes six parts: Reading Comprehension, Grammar and Structure,
Word Formation, Paraphrase, Figure of Speech and
Translation. All testing items were assigned a certain number of points ranging
from 1 to 3. Regarding scoring criteria, it was not difficult for markers to
score students in objective questions such as multiple-choice questions. Since
a clear-cut answer was offered, students got points if they selected the
correct answer or got no points if selecting a wrong answer. For subjective
questions, students were deducted 0.5 points for each mistake if they had in
their answers until the total score of that question was run out. Mistakes
encompassed various types, such as word spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes,
punctuation mistakes and other mistakes. The final score of students was
composed of their separate points in the six parts.
In Phase two, two focus
group interviews were made onto six and five students out of the two classes
adopting online teaching and blended teaching respectively. The purpose of
focus group interviews was to identify what attitudes students had about online
teaching and blended teaching separately. The whole interview process was
audio-recorded after researchers sought students’ permission. The data yielded
were transcribed and subjected to a content analysis.
3.4 Procedures
As above mentioned, this
study aimed to compare whether three teaching modes had significant effect on
students’ learning outcomes in Comprehensive English course. This course
covered four semesters in students’ first two years and the experiment was conducted
in Semester 3. We chose this semester because the first year, covering Semester
1 and 2, was a transitional period for students who just graduated from
secondary school and took their time to adapt to the new university learning
environment including learning styles, course requirements, and teachers’
teaching patterns. In Comprehensive English course, students used the same
textbooks and were evaluated by the same testing paper at the end of the
semester. Students were not told that they were going to participate in an
experiment. Before the experiment, the results of ANOVA in three classes’
testing scores in Semester 2 showed that there were no significant differences
among the three classes in terms of their scores F (2.87) =1.663, p=0.196>0.05.
Three parallel classes were assigned the experimental conditions randomly.
Finally, Class One was assigned an online teaching mode, Class Two was blended
teaching mode and Class Three still adopted the traditional face-to-face
teaching mode. Students in Class One learned Comprehensive English courses via
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) platform. Students attended the
asynchronous online English course and do the assignments online. Should they
have questions, they could raise them on the discussion board to seek course
teachers’ help or discuss them with their fellows. All students’ learning
activities were undertaken online and they learned the
course online for a total 32 sessions, 64 hours. Students in Class Two learned
the Comprehensive English course by adopting the blended teaching mode. They
attended the asynchronous online English course but only learned online for 16
sessions accounting for a half of the whole 32 sessions and they had
face-to-face learning for the other 16 sessions. The autonomous learning tasks
in the online courses were mainly language learning activities including
vocabulary study, sentence structure analysis, and online reading and writing
practice. The offline courses referred to some language use activities, for
example, discussion and presentation. This meant that students received
teachers’ instruction electronically and physically. They were able to have
direct interaction with teachers while they enjoyed the convenience of online
teaching. In contrast with Class One and Class Two, students in Class Three
still clung to traditional classroom face-to-face teaching for the whole
semester. They received their teacher’s lecture delivery in the classroom for
the whole 32 sessions.
In Phase Two, two focus
group interviews were conducted onto six students from Class 1 where the online
teaching mode was applied and the other five students in Class two where the
blended teaching mode was employed.
3.5 Data analysis
For the quantitative data
generated in Phase One, Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) for
Windows, version 27 (SPSS 27) was used to conduct the data analysis. A one-way
ANOVA and Turkey’s post-hoc analysis were undertaken
in order to compare the means of the three different experiential groups of the
study. We set p < 0.05 as a cut-off point of statistical
significance. As for the qualitative data yielded from focus group interviews,
content analysis was used to code, interpret, and make sense of the data (Miles
& Huberman, 1994). We strictly adhered to qualitative data analysis
procedures: organizing the data, transcribing data, reading
and coding data, and noting emerging patterns and themes. Specifically, all
interview data stored in one folder were transcribed and later translated into
English versions verbatim (Creswell, 2012). Then, all English versions were
returned to participants for seeking their comments. The participants commented
on the translation and provided their suggestions on the English versions. The
final version was ready to be coded through several rounds of revisions of the
English versions. The data were manually coded and analyzed in a sequential and
recursive way and both of the two authors coded the
data in order to improve coding reliability. When disputes on coding between us
arose, we recoded till a consensus was reached.
4. Results
4.1 Results of RQ 1: Comparison of Online teaching, Blended teaching and face-to-face teaching on students’ course
learning outcomes
In order
to examine
whether there were significant differences in students’ examinations in terms
of three teaching modes, a one-way ANOVA was conducted. Before doing that, we
checked whether the data met the three assumptions for running the parametric
test of ANOVA. First, the results of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test
showed that the sample was normally distributed (p= 0.08 > 0.05).
Second, the results of Levene’s test showed that the assumption of equality of
variances was not violated (p= 0.165 > 0.05). Finally, the
assumption of independence of the observations was also met in the study for no
participant attended more than two classes. Since three assumptions were met,
we run a one-way ANOVA to look at whether the differences between the three
groups were significant. The results of the comparison are summarized in Table
1.
Table 1. Comparison of three teaching modes on
course testing scores
|
Online Teaching |
Blended teaching |
Face-to-face teaching |
F |
p |
||||
|
M |
SD |
M |
SD |
M |
SD |
|||
|
Course scores |
72.97 |
7.71 |
73.33 |
8.47 |
79.37 |
10.38 |
4.865 |
.010 |
*p<0.05
Table 1 shows that three
classes performed significantly differently in semester testing scores (F
(2,87) = 4.865, p = 0.01<0.05). Turkey’s post
hoc procedure indicated that face-to-face teaching class (M = 79.37) got
significantly more scores than online teaching class (M = 72.97) and blended
teaching class (M = 73.33) in the semester examination. There was no
significant difference in testing scores between the online teaching class and
the blended teaching class.
4.2 Results of RQ
2: Students’ perceptions about Online teaching and Blended teaching
As mentioned earlier, two
focus group interviews were respectively conducted to examine students’
perceptions about online teaching and blended teaching, especially about the
comparisons between them and face-to-face teaching.
4.2.1
Students’ perceptions about online teaching
In the online teaching
focus group interview, when students were asked their views about online teaching,
they responded that they had mixed feelings about it. On the
whole, they thought that online teaching’s drawbacks outweighed their
benefits in language learning.
Students firstly believed
that online education, as a new teaching method of incorporating digital
technology and internet into education, brought great benefits to them. Online
teaching provided one more option for education via digital technology. For example,
one participant said that the greatest advantage of online teaching was it was
a good standby of face-to-face teaching. Online teaching broke the limitations
of time and space which made teaching possible when traditional face-to-face
teaching could not be carried out. A good case was online teaching almost
replaced classroom teaching throughout the world when COVID- 19 pandemic
disrupted regular classroom teaching.
While students pointed out
the benefits that online teaching had, students also highlighted the drawbacks
of online education. Firstly, they stated that online teaching posed
substantial technological challenges to students. For example, one focus group participant
remarked that online education sometimes was not reliable because it relied
upon internet connection excessively and was easily adversely influenced by
unstable network signal. It was quite disappointing when students were focusing
on video learning when the video was in stuck due to the slow internet
connection.
Secondly, participants also
claimed that students’ self-discipline was strongly needed in online teaching
classes. They clarified that students sometimes were inclined to distract their
attention without teachers’ supervision in online teaching classes. One
participant remarked,
“In face-to-face teaching
classrooms, most students are immersed in course learning for most of the time
because their teachers are always there. In online learning, the case is
different. Since their course teachers can not see them in person, students sometimes
are lost. They did not concentrate on their study as what they performed in
face-to-face teaching. (Online-teaching focus group interview)
Finally, some participants
responded that online teaching also influenced students’ interaction with
teachers and their peers. They can get access to student-teacher interaction or
students-student interaction on online platforms but
the interaction effect is not so direct and convenient as face-to-face
teaching. For example, one participant said,
“I feel online interaction
is quite restricted. Well, students can still interact with teachers and their
classmates. However, it is not as good as offline interaction. Students talked
to teachers and students directly while online interaction is time consuming.
Sometimes, even students get through online with their teachers and classmates but the voice quality is not good. Anyway, it is
quite troublesome to make online interaction.” (Online-teaching focus group
interview)
4.2.2
Students’ perceptions about blended teaching
In the online teaching
focus group interview, when students were asked their views about blended
teaching, the same result was acquired and
participants had complicated feelings about it. They acknowledged that blended
teaching was a new attempt in education trying to combine the advantages of
both online teaching and face-to-face-teaching. However, just like online
teaching, blended teaching also had its limitations.
All participants
highlighted the benefits of blended teaching. They said that blended teaching
combined both features of online teaching and face-to-face teaching, enabling
students to attempt different teaching modes. Another benefit of blended
teaching reflected by participants was its flexibility and convenience which
was also revealed by online teaching class.
In comparison with their
positive attitudes toward blended teaching, participants expressed more
negative views about blended teaching especially about its on-line part.
Firstly, some participants responded that blended teaching was redundant and
unnecessary. They stated that blended teaching was a new attempt but not
necessary because they could watch the recorded videos out of classes. Using
classroom time to watch videos online was a waste of time for them.
Secondly, some participants
replied that in order to complete blended learning,
they were forced to purchase electronic products which were not needed in
face-to-face teaching and learning. The purchase would undoubtedly increase
students’ financial burden. Besides, students had to bother to learn how to use
these electronic devices. For instance, one participant said,
“Blended teaching is a big
problem for students who are from low-income families. They don’t have enough
money to buy smart phones or tablets and laptops to carry out online teaching.
They are forced to buy those devices by borrowing money or using their living
expense. For them, blended teaching is a burden. What’s more, even they had
those devices in hand, they had to learn how to use them which takes their time
and efforts.” (Blended teaching focus group interview)
Finally, students pointed
out the on-line part of the blended teaching asked students to be highly
self-disciplined which is also mentioned by participants receiving online
teaching.
5. Discussion
This study was conducted to
compare the effects of online teaching, and blended teaching and face-to-face
teaching modes on EFL university course learning. It also aimed at exploring
the overall attitudes of Chinese university students toward online and blended
learning and their preferences when three options were available: online, face-to-face and blended teaching.
As for the first research
question, the results showed that there were significant differences among
online teaching, blended teaching and face-to-face
teaching. The further study revealed that face-to-face teaching were
significantly better than online teaching and blended teaching and there were
no significant differences between online teaching and blended teaching. The
results were inconsistent with substantial previous studies which advocated
that the use of the online teaching mode enhanced students’ course learning
outcomes (AlShahrani & Talaue, 2018; Bazelais & Doleck, 2018; Pei &
Wu, 2015; Yen et al., 2018). The results also contradicted many prior studies
which indicated that blended teaching worked better than face-to-face teaching
(Caruso et al., 2017; Jiang et al., 2022) or worked equally with face-to-face
teaching (Alshawish et al, 2021). The results seem to suggest that digital
technologies are helpful and useful in teachers’ teaching and students’
learning, but they are not transforming the nature of teaching and learning.
Worth noting is that the challenges teachers faced with
regard to technology use were not brought to the fore (see e.g., Gao
& Zhang, 2020).
Regarding the second
research question, the results showed that students had both positive attitudes
and negative attitudes toward online teaching and blended teaching which both
involved the use of digital technologies and internet. They all stated that
online teaching and blended teaching possessed advantages in language teaching.
They explained that two teaching modes, as innovative ways in language
teaching, could substitute traditional face-to-face teaching especially when
face-to-face teaching was not viable due to the spread of some infectious
diseases such as COVID 19 pandemic. Meanwhile, two novel teaching modes
rendered huge flexibility and convenience to students. This result is supported
by a great number of previous studies (Miyazoe & Anderson, 2010; Richards,
2015; White, 2017). However, students also highlighted the limitations that
online teaching had. They reported that online teaching was restricted by
technological infrastructure and led to poor student-student and
teacher-student interaction affecting students’ learning satisfaction and
outcomes, as reported in many previous studies (Almahasees et al, 2021; Atwa et
al., 2022; Muthuprasad et al, 2021; Wut & Xu, 2021).
Students’ perceptions
towards online teaching and blended teaching might justify why students
receiving face-to-face teaching performed significantly better than those who
received online teaching and blended teaching. When they were asked about their
preferred teaching approach, most of them opted for face-to-face teaching. This
signals that students did not accept the online teaching. According to the
Technology Acceptance Model, students’ acceptability of new technology is
determined by two factors, perceived usefulness and
perceived ease of use (Davis,1986). In this study, students indeed reported
that online teaching was helpful and useful; however, when they were asked
about the drawbacks of online teaching, they also indicated that online
teaching had massive problems as described above, which made them believe that
the new teaching mode, online teaching was not effective when compared with
face-to-face teaching.
6. Conclusion and
implications
This study was undertaken
to examine whether online teaching, blended teaching and face-to-face teaching
modes had significant differences in an EFL learning course. Students’
perceptions toward new online teaching modes were also explored. The study revealed
that the face-to-face teaching class performed significantly better than the
online teaching and blended teaching classes. Focus group interviews with the
online class and the blended class revealed that while students agreed on the
benefits of online learning, they also pointed out their substantial drawbacks.
The qualitative findings from the group interviews seemed to support the
quantitative result. Based on the results, we conclude that online teaching, as
a new teaching method, cannot replace face-to-face teaching when students’
learning outcomes and their perceptions toward online teaching are taken into
consideration.
Our findings provide
implications for promoting Chinese EFL teacher professional development.
Chinese EFL teachers have to be aware that traditional
face-to-face teaching would more likely lead to higher English course scores
than online teaching and if they have options to choose the teaching method,
they should adopt the face-to-face teaching. Even though they are forced to
employ online teaching (e.g., due to the spread of COVID 19), they should do
their best to solve the problems arising from online teaching. They have to create a favorable internet-based environment so
that students get access to online teaching with ease. They also have to consider how to motivate students to get engaged in
online learning which is not students’ preference. In addition, they have to think about how to compensate for what is lost in
online teaching, for example, student-teacher interaction, which is easily
available as a strong feature in face-to-face teaching. In summary, Chinese EFL
teachers are supposed to take proactive part in teacher education programmes
involving how to teach in the digital technology era so that students are
willing to accept new technology and improve their learning outcomes.
What needs to be
acknowledged is that the quasi-experimental study is conducted in one
university, which might limit the generalizability of the study findings. In
China, education resources are unevenly distributed and if this study took this
factor into consideration, the result would be more generalizable. In addition,
the sampled students are from one major and whether the result applies to
students in other majors is also unknown. In the future, a comparative study is
suggested to examine whether there will be differences in terms of different
places and majors.
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