The new educational paradigm in the COVID-19 era: Can Blackboard replace physical teaching in EFL writing classrooms?

Abstract

Background: Many changes are evident in classrooms in the COVID-19 times, but the most drastic perhaps has been the scramble to find substitutes for physical classrooms, a truly solemn challenge for the foreign language learning paradigm. In the meantime, many customized learning apps came to the educationists’ rescue: Blackboard being one of them. This study endeavors to investigate the effectiveness of Blackboard as an alternative to face-to-face writing instruction during the COVID-19 crisis and in the following period of precautionary distancing and other norms. Methods: The study used the final grades of Saudi male and female EFL undergraduates across two terms and with the Blackboard and face-to-face approaches in three compulsory English writing courses, and statistical tests were conducted on them. Results: The findings showed that female students (M=83.24, Std= 10.627) significantly outperform the male students (M=73.62, Std=16.011) in the final writing test (P=. 000). Furthermore, in face-to-face teaching (M=84.34, Std=10.752) was more statistically effective than when using Blackboard (M=75.65, Std=14.545) with the Sig value scored (P=. 000). Findings also showed that third level scored higher than the second and the first in writing (83.83, 78.17, 77.89) respectively. All the differences were significant (P=. 000). Conclusion: The implications of the study have a major bearing on curriculum and pedagogy planning for the coming times which may see more comebacks of the COVID-19 variants and warrant innovative teaching-learning tools and methods.