Technology has opened the door to higher education to many who might have had no opportunity otherwise. These educational opportunities are becoming quite extensive and also inclusive, reaching a greater number of students and covering an ever widening range of subjects. Many of the students who are now investing time and money into online education live in remote locations and/or third world countries where access to English study is limited. So a logical next step is bringing English language learning into the virtual classroom. However, proponents of classroom teaching often oppose this natural transition due to the fact that students will have less “face time.” Although face to face communication is a valuable experience, it in and of itself does not ensure language acquisition. In fact, most actual language acquisition happens within the student outside of the classroom.
Online vs. Classroom Learning Environment
As a language learner and an introvert, I was terrified of the language classroom. Simply walking through the door would elevate the stress in my student-self so much that I found it impossible to utter even the simplest of phrases. It certainly was not that I had not studied or practiced. To the contrary, it was the only class to which I devoted several hours a day. Yet in spite of two years of dedicated study, I did not reach a communicative level of Spanish. However, my experience in an online language learning program was quite the opposite. Although I studied Japanese rather than Spanish, most of the other relevant factors were the same. I had had no prior experience in either language. Both were two-year programs. All of my study was completed at home alone. The only major difference was the face-to-face, synchronous interaction I had in the on-campus Spanish classes. When I studied Japanese, I quickly realized I did not miss this interaction, nor did I need it. In fact, my Japanese flourished during the same length of time. I did live in Japan, but contrary to popular belief, that did not assist me in my learning. While living in Japan, I was teaching English to Japanese Self Defense Forces personnel and Japanese nationals working on base, which meant that I spent all but my dedicated study time speaking English. I spoke English all day at work, while I was at home with my family and with the exception of occasional excursions into town or sightseeing trips, I also functioned exclusively in English as I handled my day-to-day activities on the military base where I lived. Even my Japanese friends preferred to speak English as they were eager for the English practice our friendship offered to them.
Online Learning Environment
So when the opportunity arose for me to create an online learning platform for English learners, I jumped at the chance. I knew it could be formatted in a way that could meet the needs of every learning style. Certainly students with a communicative learning style benefit greatly from an interactive learning environment, and honestly, that is extremely difficult to recreate in a virtual classroom simply because there are only 24 hours in a day. One teacher cannot communicate “live” with students daily or even weekly in the allotted time typically given to teaching an online class. However, within the current constraints imposed by online platforms, it can be addressed. Most online classes, whether content based or language based, attempt to do this through discussion assignments. Students write or record a response to a prompt. Then his or her classmates respond to that, often adding a question, which is then answered in turn. This thread style communication is typically completed asynchronously, but it requires all of the elements of dialogue found in a face-to-face classroom. The benefit is students have time to create a more thoughtful communication than what can be done in impromptu communication. This would seem like a deficit in online learning. However, in my experience, it has proven advantageous. Students work harder on their pronunciation, word choice and grammar because their classmates will see or view their submission. Throughout the course of this purposeful and generally well-prepared dialogue, they acquire the language and confidence needed in spontaneous communication. On a side note… as an introvert, I had more interaction in the target language with my classmates in the online environment than I ever had in my Spanish classes. It is fairly certain that as technology continues to advance, more ways to recreate face-to-face interaction will emerge. So even this perceived limitation of online learning will ultimately disappear.
Pronunciation Concerns
Another perceived limitation of virtual language courses is the lack of immediate pronunciation feedback. While incorporating targeted pronunciation tasks is quite possible through text, graphics, images and even videos, providing immediate feedback has seemed to be an elusive goal and a significant flaw to online language courses. Some higher education language programs have established online tutoring sessions facilitated by undergrad students. Others, primarily private language facilities, have created online synchronous classes either in a private or relatively small group dynamic, to overcome this deficit. Neither of these solutions is practical in most online programs, and may not actually be as beneficial as previously perceived. Although immediate feedback is certainly valuable, practice of the linguistic target is more so. In live classes, students do not have a way to replay the feedback from the instructor during their practice. Thus what had been previously considered a detriment to online learning is actually an asset. In online learning environments, teachers can provide audio or video feedback to recorded pronunciation tasks submitted by students. As students work on their pronunciation targets, they can refer back to this recorded feedback again and again. Technological advancements are also providing options that mimic immediate feedback. These include Google Translate with an English to English setting and Google’s Speech to Text. These options not only provide feedback, but also help create independent learners. Students are able to uncover problems in their pronunciation and use audio dictionaries to hear correct pronunciation. Albeit not perfect, these various technological devices or apps can greatly aid students in improving pronunciation, rhythm, intonation and listening comprehension all from the comfort of home.
Affectivity Considerations
Individualized communication daily or weekly would be difficult for any teacher, whether in an online or physical classroom, to accomplish with a large group of students. However, traditional learning environments allow brief personal exchanges during class discussions, before/after classes and during office hours. While spontaneous one-to-one communication is impossible to replicate in a virtual learning environment, this does not mean a relationship between the student and teacher does not exist. In fact, it thrives. Although an online class of twenty students is considered one class, the teacher-student relationship is so much more intense that it is more like twenty classes made up of only one student. Different from many traditional language classes, students receive individual feedback on every assignment. Students can ask questions about the feedback and teachers respond. Although this communication is rarely synchronous, students have documented feedback that aids in their language development. Often oral communication in the traditional classroom is forgotten or misconstrued. Additionally, teachers of online classes have set office hours, or by appointment office hours, when students can meet via Skype or some other synchronous communication tool in the same way that teachers in a brick and mortar classroom have. Students can also send questions or private messages through email. With more and more institutions incorporating technology, most out of classroom communication between teachers and students happens via email even in the traditional educational setting. One bonus to this form of communication in the virtual world is that online teachers are typically close to their computers and as a result, can often have a “live” conversation, or answer more expediently than teachers tied to a classroom environment. When teachers respond promptly, this indirect communication is much more effective than face-to-face, especially since the feedback is individualized rather than delivered to the group as a whole. That being said, there are also times when group feedback, instruction or communication is needed or preferred. Most learning platforms today have this component. Teachers can post a message in text, video or audio. This can be instructional or informative. Depending on the platform, students can also directly respond with comments and/or questions. Interestingly, it is the same communication platform I use with my students in the traditional classroom bringing the online experience even closer to what students experience in traditional learning environments. In addition to anecdotal observations, research has revealed that the individualized instruction that results from the online learning module has been found to produce a positive effect on learning outcomes in two separate studies (Nguyen 2007).
Surprisingly, student to student relationships also thrive in this online environment. As often happens in traditional classrooms, students from the same home country or language will seek each other out. So online students build relationships in much the same way as they would in a classroom. They reach out to those who are familiar, usually through email or a chat app like Whatsapp or Skype. A unique advantage in the online classroom is that students also connect with students from other countries as well as those who speak other native languages more frequently than what is typically seen in a traditional classroom. Because students, through the discussion-style assignments, learn about their classmates, they are less intimidated to reach out to them, and since nearly every online class, due to the nature of the beast, has an introductory assignment, the “ice is broken” quite early, commonalities are found, and relationships grow and thrive throughout the term. In fact, many students are actually friends by the end of the term. In my 25+ years of classroom experience, I have not seen the same phenomenon at this level even when I forced students from different backgrounds to interact. In the traditional classroom, once the activity or class is over, students retreat to their respective cultural groups and the spontaneous communication opportunity is gone until it is “forced” in the next class.
Research in Online and Traditional Learning Outcomes
Not only has online education proven to provide a highly affective environment, studies have also revealed that online students perform, as well as, if not better than those in an in-class learning environment. Any differences between them do not appear to depend on the learning environment. Rather, variances between grades and learning outcomes depend more on content, structure, instructor and his or her delivery of the information. (Means, Toyama, Murphy et. al. 2009). A number of studies comparing learner outcomes in traditional, online and blended learning environments have been conducted, but no definitive conclusions on superiority have been drawn. Four studies (Cavus et al. 2007; Dinov, Sanchez and Christou 2008; Gao and Lehman 2003; Zhang 2005) have suggested students make greater gains in online environments than they do in instructor-directed environments, concluding that outcomes are better when students have more control of their learning. However, three other studies did not reveal the same effect (Cook et al. 2007; Evans 2007; Smith 2006). These inconsistent results further support that the learning environment alone does not provide the better learning experience, but rather the student’s effort, motivation and desire to learn are the pivotal elements for better learning outcomes.
One consistent difference that has surfaced is online students are proving to be more independent learners. The nature and format of an online class requires students to develop more self-discipline as activities and assignments are done exclusively out of a classroom setting. Students must often set their own deadlines, create their own motivation and work with classmates who may be in another time zone and have other availability. All of this prepares them for not only being successful as a learner, but better prepares them for life after education where flexibility and responsibility are seen as paramount. In-class projects and presentations can also give traditional students opportunities for gaining these qualities; however, online instruction always does (Nikotina 2016).
Another unique advantage has been the implementation of more self-reflection in online courses. Although this self-reflection can and is certainly incorporated in many traditional classrooms, it is a featured component in most virtual classes. Current research is proving that adding prompts “promoting self-reflection, self-regulation and self-monitoring leads to more positive online learning outcomes” (Means et al. 2009).
Conclusion
In today’s technological world, students now have more educational opportunities than ever. Online education is certainly here to stay and programs that do not provide this alternative learning platform will find themselves losing in the battle for an ever-growing student population. Thus, educators making decisions about online learning need to not only evaluate the effectiveness of online learning for different types of students and subject matter, but also consider the relative effectiveness of different online learning practices. This will ensure that the learning outcomes for all students, whether in traditional, blended or exclusively online programs, are positive and inclusive of reflective opportunities.
References
- Cavus, N., H. Uzonboylu, and D. Ibrahim. 2007. Assessing the success rate of students using a learning management system together with a collaborative tool in Web-based teaching of programming languages. Journal of Educational Computing Research 36 (3):301–21.
- Cook, D. A., M. H. Gelula, D. M. Dupras, and A. Schwartz. 2007. Instructional methods and cognitive and learning styles in Web-based learning: Report of two randomised trials. Medical Education 41 (9):897–905.
- Dinov, I. D., J. Sanchez, and N. Christou. 2008. Pedagogical utilization and assessment of the statistic online computational resource in introductory probability and statistics courses. Computers & Education 50 (1):284–300.
- Evans, K. L. 2007. Learning stoichiometry: A comparison of text and multimedia instructional formats. PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, Penn.
- Gao, T., and J. D. Lehman. 2003. The effects of different levels of interaction on the achievement and motivational perceptions of college students in a Web-based learning environment. Journal of Interactive Learning Research 14 (4):367–86.
- Means, B.Barbara Means Yukie Toyama Robert Murphy Marianne Bakia Karla Jones. 2009. Center for technology in learning evaluation of evidence-based practices in online learning: a meta-analysis and review of online learning studies, U.S. Department of Education Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development Policy and Program Studies Service.
- Nguyen, F. 2007. The effect of an electronic performance support system and training as performance interventions. PhD diss., Arizona State University, Tempe.
- Nikotina, A. 2016. Online vs in-class: are we asking the wrong question? Online Learning Consortium, Inc.
- Smith, C. M. 2006. Comparison of Web-based instructional design strategies in a pain management program for nursing professional development. PhD diss., State University of New York at Buffalo.
- Zhang, D. 2005. Interactive multimedia-based e-learning: A study of effectiveness. American Journal of Distance Education 19 (3):149–62.