AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF BLENDED LEARNING AT UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY

Abstract

A survey was conducted with 102 students from Hue University of Foreign Languages (HUFL) English Department who had opportunity to take part in blended courses. In addition, a focus group discussion was also administered with 10 voluntary students. The findings from this study revealed the general perception of blended learning of EFL students and expressed their positive attitudes towards blended learning. The study also indicated that the strengths of blended learning outweighed its weaknesses. Some advantages can be listed as flexibility, usefulness, and increased interaction. In addition, the limitations and problems of blended learning cannot be ignored, inluding technical and Internet problems, time-consuming procedure, heavy workload and plagiarism. Those challenges are followed by a number of practical suggestions for addressing the drawbacks, including solving technical and Internet problems, providing proper training to students, increasing the number of labs blended courses. Students’ acceptance of blended learning was also shown from their preference to take another blended course in the future and their liking to recommend for their friends.