The Foreign Language Students’ Readiness on Online Learning in Malaysia

Abstract

Since the COVID-19 outbreak had crossed the globe and wreaking havoc on people’s life and health, almost all educational institutions were closed down temporarily and online learning has replaced previously conducted conventional teaching and learning in the classroom. However, the main concern here is to what extent the students are ready for this drastic change in their learning endeavors. Therefore, this study seeks to examine the readiness levels of online learning among foreign language students in selected higher learning institutions in Malaysia. Based on the results, it is reported that most Foreign Language students in Malaysia were ready for online learning with the highest score in the “computer and Internet self-efficacy” dimension but demonstrated the lowest score in terms of the “learners' control” dimension. The results further indicated that the students were very confident in their ability to search and gather information for online learning using search engines like Google and Yahoo. On the contrary, this group of students opined that they had less control in managing their online learning class as they were easily distracted by other online activities like messaging, gaming, and browsing the Internet.