Ставлення студентів, що вивчають китайську мову як іноземну, до дистанційної освіти (змішана модель) під час пандемії Covid-19 в Україні

Abstract

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, Ukraine, as well as many other countries worldwide, has transferred the educational process online in order to minimize the spread of infection. This paper aims to analyze the perception of bachelor students majored in Chinese Philology towards such an urgent change in their educational process. As students are one of the key stakeholders of any learning process, it is extremely important to understand what they think about the effectiveness of distance education in the form of blended model. In particular, it is crucial to realize in which way such an urgent transfer has influenced the development of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, typing, receptive (listening and reading) and productive (speaking and writing) skills. In order to fill the aforenoted gap, current research analyzed the data collected through an anonymous online questionnaire via Google Forms. The key participants are 40 BA students majored in Chinese Philology who study in two different institutions – Kyiv National Linguistic University (Kyiv, Ukraine) and International Humanitarian University (Odessa, Ukraine). As two institutions use different teaching methods, curriculum and tools, the students’ answers will be unbiased, which in turns contributes to the reliability of the results. The findings indicate that the traditional classroom has to transform and students are not afraid to meet the new blended educational model. The paper points to the fact that students as key stakeholders support the move towards global trends in modern educational technologies The majority of respondents believe that such a switch is at least the same effective for learning an eastern language as a traditional classroom. Students hope that in future, when COVID-19 pandemic will be finally defeated, they will still have opportunities for blended education, as it is convenient, productive and engaging trend. Moreover, the paper argues how students’ perception correlates with the previous researches and points to the gaps for future investigations. Keywords: distance education, blended learning model, traditional classroom, students’ perception, Chinese as a foreign language.