Abstract
With the growth and widespread availability of education technologies, English language teaching (ELT) needs to be shaped differently. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a disruption of education systems all over the world on a scale and scope never seen before. This paper aims to explore the potential of online lessons subcategorized as open educational resources (OER) in enhancing university students’ English language skills through the Moodle system. A total of 189 first-year humanities students from a medium sized university in Thailand participated in this study during a semester break. Prior to the OER exposure, the participants completed a questionnaire eliciting personal information, followed by a pre-test on five English language skills. Then, the students were encouraged to freely explore and exploit the online lessons for a period of 19 days. After the OER exposure, a parallel online post-test, a post OER exposure questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews were administered. The pre-test/post-test score comparison shows significant gain scores, suggesting the positive impact of the online lessons on the participants’ English performance. However, the questionnaire and interview data reveal intriguing findings about the students’ engagement and interaction with the online lessons , highlighting the notions of learner autonomy and self-regulated learning. This study, thus, represents a wake-up call for Thai ELT stakeholders to prepare to shift away from traditional teaching approaches, to modify teachers’ behaviours, syllabus, and curriculum, and to empower learners to successfully cope with the changing educational environment. Keywords: English language; learner autonomy ; online lessons; self-regulated learning ; Thai university students
Highlights
It is acknowledged that technology has had a massive impact on all aspects of our lives, and education is no exception
This study demonstrates that the open educational resources (OER) links or online lessons made available through the Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment system (Moodle) system for Thai students did support language learning
Most of the participants expressed their positive attitudes toward the content, but the findings generated from the questionnaires and interviews clearly indicate that Thai learners’ autonomy needs to be fostered so that they can thrive outside the classroom
Summary
It is acknowledged that technology has had a massive impact on all aspects of our lives, and education is no exception. English education continues to increase in importance due to its recognized status as an international language, in addition to being the lingua franca in many contexts. The elevated status of the English language compels academic institutions at all levels to pay more attention to the quality of English education to improve learners’ English competence. In this regard, Thailand has exerted great efforts, be they financially or academically. Despite the heightened importance of English education and substantial attention to English language teaching (ELT), it is unfortunate that Thai learners of English do not appear to be achieving satisfactory progress. Crucial actions need to be immediately taken in order to rectify and ameliorate English proficiency of Thai citizens
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