Students’ Perspective on the Use of Google Sites in General English Class at Higher Education

Abstract

Technology plays a significant role in English Language Teaching during the pandemic. There are several platforms that both teachers and students need to adapt to. Google seems to have a major role in developing platforms for both teachers and students. However, among those platforms, this study focuses on the use of E-Module arranged using the Google Sites platform as supplementary material in General English classes. Google Sites was chosen as it is a web-based module that teachers can personalize to fulfill students’ needs. Since this study aims to evaluate the use of E-Module arranged using the Google Sites platform as supplementary material in General English classes at Tribhuwana Tunggadewi University, this study employed descriptive quantitative method using survey to gather the data. The population of the study was all students who enroll in General English during the academic year 2021/2022. From the population, 328 students participated in the survey. The survey questions covered learning efficiency, experience, and motivation from students’ points of view. The study findings indicated that more than half of respondents agreed that the module was very good to use without revision, which means the module was efficient, fun, and motivating. Yet, the average of 25% of each question demands minor improvement for the module as well as providing the printed version. Therefore, teachers and lecturers may use Google Sites as supplementary material. For further study, as the pandemic becomes endemic, researchers might conduct an evaluation of e-module both in online and offline classes.Keywords: E-nglish Module, Google Sites, Students’ Perspective

University Students’ Perceptions of Google Tools in Learning English Courses Online

“…Regarding students' overall perceptions, the findings supported that university students had highly positive perceptions of towards the application of the Google tools for their online English courses learning. These were consistent with the results from [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52] in which students felt like using the Google tools, and emphatically perceived the tools as helpful, efficient, and interesting learning aids. Also, students made it abundantly clear that the utilization of Google products in the process of teaching and learning English is unquestionably doable, as was clearly demonstrated by the students.…”

“…Findings in [45] on students' perception of Google Meet revealed that students were content, safe, self-assured, brave, and confident psychologically, and that there were no barriers during the Google Meet video conferencing during the English-speaking class. Studies [46], [47] on students' perceptions of Google Sites shared similar results. Students perceived Google Sites as a quite helpful, interesting, interactive, and easy tool to use [46], and learning with Google Sites was efficient, fun, and motivating [47].…”

“…Studies [46], [47] on students' perceptions of Google Sites shared similar results. Students perceived Google Sites as a quite helpful, interesting, interactive, and easy tool to use [46], and learning with Google Sites was efficient, fun, and motivating [47]. Regarding Google Docs, most students who wrote using Google Docs felt that it helped them improve their teamwork and discussion abilities [48].…”

“…Numerous studies on students' perceptions of Google tools in English learning online have been identified, which were conducted either with separate Google applications such as Google Classroom [35], [37], [42]; Google Forms [43], [44]; Google Meet [45]; Google Sites [46], [47]; Google Docs [48], [49], and Google Translate [5], [50],…”