Abstract
The use of technology in language learning has extensively expanded in line with the advancement of technology itself. However, the investigation into the implementation of video conferences, learning management systems, and mobile applications, particularly during the emergency remote teaching/the Covid-19 pandemic, is still lacking. This paper presents survey data from three groups of Indonesian EFL students using three different digital learning platforms: Cisco WebEx Meeting video conferencing, Google Classroom learning management system (LMS), and WhatsApp mobile messenger application. The purpose of the study was to determine the students’ preferences including their perception and point of views on using the platforms and application during the remote teaching situation. There were 140 EFL students from two universities/institutes in Jakarta and Aceh to take part as the participants. The instrument was a questionnaire based on criteria of CALL evaluation, and descriptive analysis using percentages and thematic analysis was applied. The findings show that the Cisco WebEx Meeting, Google Classroom, and WhatsApp gained highly positive agreement on all criteria. Specifically, the Cisco WebEx meeting got the highest scores on authenticity and meaning focus. Meanwhile, for GC and WhatsApp, the criteria on language learning potential, meaning focus and authenticity achieved the highest scores. Moreover, WhatsApp is the most preferred among others in meaning focus, learner fit, positive impact, and practicality. However, the three digital platforms received the lowest score on a positive impact at each group-participant. It seemingly indicates that they thought the full online digital learning system they experienced during ERT is less preferable than face-to-face learning.
Highlights
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak had become a worldwide pandemic because the cases outside China rose 13 times and the number of countries with cases increased threefold over two weeks (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020)
As mentioned by Hodges et al (2020), students’ attitudes towards online instruction can affect the perception of the success of teaching and learning. This present study aims at investigating the EFL students’ preferences on video conference, learning management system, and mobile messenger application in facilitating language learning during Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT)
Almost half of participants on each group-participant, 44%-61% of them, perceived that the digital platforms they used during ERT were as beneficial and potential in language learning
Summary
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak had become a worldwide pandemic because the cases outside China rose 13 times and the number of countries with cases increased threefold over two weeks (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020). Some schools and universities have applied the policy of remote teaching and online learning (Purwanto et al, 2020). It resulted in a situation where teachers and students are undesirably asked to change their teaching system from the offline face-to-face session in the classroom into a digital/virtual teaching system using various online platforms or applications. They must quickly learn and adapt their teaching and learning management to cope with this unprecedented situation. Teachers and students in the field of English as a foreign language have no differences in handling it
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