Coronavirus (COVID-19) was declared a world pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on January 30, 2020. As a safety measure to protect people, most governments in the world, including Saudi Arabia, decided to close universities and workplaces. Prompted by this shut down, the researchers aimed to review the students� perceptions of e-learning for ESL/EFL in Saudi universities at this Coronavirus time. As such, this review reported on four primary studies that were found relevant to its focus during the period from January 2020 till April 2020 (Abu-Ayfah, 2020; Ahmad, 2020; Alshehri & Cumming, 2020; Hakami, 2020). As a historical perspective of the review�s focus, it also reported on other four primary studies dating back to 2018 and 2019 (Alshehri, Rutter & Smith, 2019; Mutambik, 2018; Oyaid & Alshaya, 2019; Sharma, 2019). The review�s objectives were to report: 1) students� perceptions of e-learning for ESL/EFL, 2) benefits of e-learning for ESL/EFL, and 3) drawbacks of e-learning for ESL/EFL in Saudi universities. Moreover, this review was compared to a conference paper from China (He, 2020) as it presented a strategy to continue college English learning and teaching at Coronavirus time. Results showed students� positive views, many benefits and limited drawbacks of e-learning for ESL/EFL in Saudi universities.Keywords: e-learning; ESL/EFL; students� perceptions; benefits and drawbacks; Saudi education.
A research problem was identified that warranted the initiation of this study. A mixed pattern for results regarding Facebook usage in EFL writing outside the classroom exists in the literature. As the researchers believed in studentcentered and autonomous learning, they intended to delineate students' perceptions of the benefits and drawbacks of using Facebook in EFL academic writing. The researchers conducted this study with their students at a Saudi college. Ten students participated in this study while they were studying the English Writing course. The researchers collected data through a questionnaire, interviews and participant observations. The findings showed six benefits of Facebook usage in academic writing: (1) greater motivation to write, (2) increased collaboration among students, (3) improvements in writing, (4) having a good medium to practise writing outside the classroom, (5) providing an environment with less pressure on writing and (6) greater ease of use and being able to write anytime, anywhere. Two drawbacks were identified: (1) distractions regarding chat invitations and (2) use of impolite language. The researchers provided suggestions for maximising the benefits and minimising the drawbacks in EFL teaching and learning. They also linked the use of Facebook to some learning theories. أحمد خالد و الشلوي سعد بن أحمد ليالي (. 2020 .) السعودية الكليات إحدى في اإلنجليزية باللغة األكاديمية الكتابة لتعليم الفيسبوك استخدام حول الطالب آراء. العلوم فرع فيصل، امللك لجامعة العلمية املجلة واإلدارية اإلنسانية ، (املجلد إلكتروني نشر (العدد ،) إلكتروني نشر
Discovering the new variants of coronavirus by the end of 2020 pushed many countries to continue suspending universities and schools. A complete change to online learning seemed the only available option to continue education given the detection of new coronavirus variants. Such a long time of using online learning can display how teachers experience this hard time of the pandemic. The researchers performed this study to explore EFL teachers’ perceptions of online learning in a Saudi university during this period. They aimed to have a closer look at EFL teachers’ perceptions of the sudden shift into online learning. They focused on the teachers’ benefits, drawbacks, and suggestions. They used a questionnaire and interviews to collect qualitative data to answer research questions. Results showed five benefits and two drawbacks of using online learning to teach English in that Saudi university. The benefits are being a good and useful option for teaching during the coronavirus pandemic, motivation of teachers, ease of access and use, interacting between teachers and students, and being less teacher-centered. The drawbacks are disruption by poor Internet and technical issues and cheating by students on assessments. The participants provided some suggestions to improve the benefits and overcome the drawbacks.
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