Does Class Size Affect the Teaching and Learning of English Language Course During ODL?

Abstract

Since the pandemic hit the world, teaching and learning have gone through many changes and reviews in order to adapt to the needs of students as well as instructors. Lecturers and students had to adhere to these changes, including larger online classrooms where one class may consist of more than the number of students in a face-to-face class. The struggles to fulfill the demand of the management, syllabus as well as students' posed challenges for the English language lecturers. The main objective of this study is to identify the views of students regarding small size classes (before mass) and large size classes (mass lecture) during their online English language learning. The method used in the study is quantitative in nature where census sampling was conducted. The respondents are 280 diploma students who enrolled Integrated Language Skills I and II (ELC121 and ELC151) courses. The study uses frequency and descriptive analysis for the data obtained from the students' questionnaire. The result indicated the students' view of different class sizes in online settings does not differ much. Proper preparation and support from many parties are the key elements to managing a big classroom. Future research can be carried out regarding the correlation of class size across gender, age and programs, and to identify the lecturers' perceptions regarding class size during their online teaching.

Challenges of Oral Presentations in Online English Classrooms: Do Lecturers and Students Experience the Same?

“…This finding is in line with a study conducted by Wang and Calvano (2022) where they found that students would engage better in a small size class and students' satisfaction towards the lesson was higher compared to those who were in a large class. Students also felt satisfied when the instructors provided their feedback in a small size class where they could also maximise their online learning experience, materials provided, and task given (Husin et al, 2022). It was also suggested that a small number of students in a class could benefit the students to have a better performance and retention of the lessons that they had (Nakamura & Dev, 2022;Wright et al, 2019).…”