Impact of flipped classroom on EFL learners' appropriate use of refusal: achievement, participation, perception

Abstract

With the emergence of innovative mobile-based tools, new opportunities have been made to enhance the quality of language learning. Keeping this in mind, the current study aimed to investigate the impact of a flipped classroom on enhancing EFL learners’ pragmatic competence. To this end, 60 EFL learners from two universities in Iran were assigned into flipped and conventional groups. In the flipped group, the course materials were posted through Telegram app before the class, and the class time was mostly devoted to communicative activities. To elicit the required data, multiple sources of data collection, including a Discourse Completion Test (DCT), a study log, the teacher's field notes, a Learning Experience Questionnaire (LEQ), a written self-report survey, and a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) questionnaire, were used. Both parametric and non-parametric statistics were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that the participants of the flipped group were more engaged with the course contents and significantly outperformed their counterparts in the conventional group in the post-test. The results of the questionnaires suggested that most participants of the flipped group enjoyed learning English in a flipped learning environment, and willingly accepted Telegram as a suitable platform in learning language. The authors present insights into the impact of flipped classrooms on appropriate use of English refusals, the participants' perception of the flipped learning experience, their level of participation inside and outside the class, their impression of the online platform, Telegram, and offer implications for practice.