High School Students’ Attitudes towards E-Learning and Impacts of Online Instruction on Their General English Learning: Challenges and Issues

Abstract

This research is aimed at examining high school students’ attitudes towards e-learning. Also, the current study investigated the effects of online learning on high school students’ general English. To achieve these objectives, the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) was administered to 73 students, and 50 of them who were at the intermediate level were selected as the study participants. Then, the selected participants were randomly divided into two groups: one experimental group (EG) ($n=25$) and one control group (CG) ($n=25$). After that, a general English pretest was administered to both groups, and then, the participants of the EG received the treatment through an online instruction (WhatsApp). Three lessons of their course book (Vision book 3) were taught to the participants via the WhatsApp application. On the other hand, the participants of the CG were deprived of online instruction. They were taught traditionally, through holding a face-to-face class. After teaching all three lessons, both groups took the posttest of general English. In addition, an attitude questionnaire was administered to the participants of the EG to examine their perspectives on e-learning, and ten students were interviewed. The study results indicated that the EG outperformed the CG on the posttest. In addition, the results of one-sample$t$-test showed that EFL students held positive perspectives on e-learning in teaching English. The interview results indicated that digital literacy, inability to focus on the screen for a long time, and lack of accessibility to high-speed Internet were the problems of e-learning.