A survey on the elementary school students’ and parents’ perceptions toward online English classes in the COVID-19 pandemic: a comparison between synchronous and asynchronous classes

Abstract

It seems indescribable how greatly the COVID-19 has impacted public schools not only in Korea but also all over the world. Since the outbreak in early 2020, elementary schools in Korea have implemented classes based on online platforms in order to practice the social distancing measures. However, there have been growing concerns about whether synchronous or asynchronous classes would better fit the elementary school context. Despite those concerns, there has not been a lot of research on this issue. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate elementary school students’ and parents’ perceptions of the two different online methods. It surveyed a group of students and parents who had participated in both synchronous and asynchronous classes in Seoul. The results show that, first, students and their parents alike preferred synchronous to asynchronous online methods. Second, their perceived achievements in synchronous classes were also better than those in asynchronous classes, although the effects of sex and grade variables were insignificant. Last, the major factor on the preference and perceived achievements of the synchronous method seems to be the interaction between the teacher and students. This study is expected to provide pedagogical implications for designing better online classes in the future.