ONLINE LEARNING READINESS LEVEL OF FIRST AND SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION, UNIVETSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Recent advances in Information and Technology Communication has prompted significant changes in the domain of education, particularly the rise of online learning. In early 2018, University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University started implementing several web-based courses on a Learning Management System, in an attempt to encourage the development of online learning at the university. But are ULIS students ready for this particular mode of teaching? The aim of this study is to investigate the level of readiness for online learning of students at Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS so that both course instructors and potential course participants would be able to identify difficulties that they might encounter in the novel virtual teaching and learning environment. The data collection process was divided into two phases: closed-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews afterwards. The number of participants in the former phase was 363 students in total, with 132 first year students and 153 second year students. The instrument of the survey was Online Learning Readiness Scale developed by Hung Chou, Chen & Own (2010). The latter phase consisted of 8 participants: 4 freshmen and 4 sophomores. The final results indicated that university students from both academic years possessed relatively high levels of online readiness, yet the second year student participants had a slightly higher level of readiness than first year participants. Therefore, the implementation of LMS was probably more suitable for sophomore ones. Further analyses presented an urgent need for creating a comfortable online community as well as for an addition of online course orientation to enhance learners’ e-learning experiences.