A Study on EFL Students’ Use of E-Learning Programs for Learning English —Taking a Taiwanese University as an Example

Abstract

With its characteristics of repeated practice and easy review, e-Learning programs have been hailed as an effective way for learning foreign languages nowadays. Supported by ICT (Information & Communication Technology), e-Learning offers students self-paced learning whereby learners can control their schedules and it is presumed to be a round-the-clock teaching aid to EFL students. As many scholars anticipate that e-Learning will become a future trend in EFL, more and more higher education institutions are investing money on English e-Learning programs in the hope that students’ English proficiency will be further upgraded by using the ubiquitous system. After investigating students’ frequency of using English e-learning programs in a local university in Taipei, the author argues in this paper that e-Learning programs do not benefit EFL students to the degree as we anticipated given the fact that cold technology and machines can never successfully become a “facilitator” that should be played by a teacher. (Harmer, 2000) After all, technology can never take the place of the teacher, who is thought to be the most crucial element of any teaching activities.