The Impact of Distance Education on Teaching Reading and Writing Skills: A Study among First Semester Students at the Faculty of Languages at Benghazi University

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty members and students had to leave theirclassrooms and move into online education contexts. This study has attempted to explorethe effect of distance education on reading and writing skills among first semesterstudents at English department, faculty of languages at Benghazi University. To do so,firstly, the starting point was comparing students' performance on two tests one after faceto face teaching and the other after online teaching. Then a semi structured interviewswere conducted with 20 students who were chosen randomly to understand the reasonsbehind their performance. Using Thematic Analysis (TA), students’ responses weretranscribed, codified, and interpreted. The findings of TA revealed that along with severaldisadvantages and challenges that students experienced in distance education with regardto learning English reading and writing skills, distance learning provided someopportunities and benefits for their learning. The study also provided some solutionsregarding online challenges.