Examining the relative effectiveness of online, blended and face-to-face teaching modes for promoting EFL teacher professional development

Abstract

Teacher professional development (PD) is an essential part for teachers’ professional growth for the quality provision of education to their students. Nonetheless, we need to find out effective ways of professional development. This study was conducted to achieve this goal by exploring the effectiveness of three teaching modes, online, blended, and face-to-face delivery, of an EFL course in a Chinese university, with the ultimate aim of promoting their PD. Three intact English classes were treated differently with Class 1 receiving online teaching, Class 2 receiving blended teaching, and Class 3 receiving face-to-face teaching. Their learning outcome was measured by an end-of-semester test. One-way ANOVA results showed that the face-to-face (onsite) teaching class performed significantly better than the other two classes. Focus group interviews of students revealed more drawbacks of online teaching than benefits. The findings suggest that online teaching, as a new teaching mode that has gained popularity due to the pandemic, cannot replace face-to-face teaching in terms of students’ learning outcomes and their perceptions toward online teaching currently. Such findings provide food for thought for EFL teachers with regard to their own professional development.