International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
well-designed questions in a fair situation and. One student commented, “in my other online courses, there are
simply notes online, there are online tests, no one is invigilating so many students are cheating. It is not fair.”
Feedback about the administration of the assessments can provide evidence that whether synchronous
videoconferencing enables students to really feel themselves in a true learning environment or not. Most
importantly, instructors need to give them the trust they need from many kilometers away. Instructors need to
realize the importance of assessments in students’ life and they need to begin to show an awareness of some of
the instructional design aspects gained very much importance these days.
This qualitative descriptive study with its inductive content analysis findings explores the learning
experiences of freshmen students who have taken the core EAP course via synchronous videoconferencing. The
students in this study help bring out the experiences and needs of synchronous videoconferencing classrooms.
The change from traditional classroom delivery to online delivery was welcomed with most students. Students
were overall satisfied with learning in a course given via synchronous videoconferencing and its management
and its requirements. However, the purposeful sample of students is the limitation of this study. The students
may be reserved to be totally honest with the researchers because one of the researchers is also their instructor,
and they also have invested money into their education. Because of this, students were asked to answer the
questions once in the tutorials and interviews. A larger sample size would be more appropriate to draw
conclusions.
CONCLUSION
This study of transforming a traditional language course to online delivery points out the importance of
meaningful learning experiences with the help of the advanced technology, opportunities for creating a learning
environment and interpersonal communication between students as well as the instructor, and the significance of
the administrative issues to build trust between students and the institution. The results of this study indicate that
students have some insight into their own learning experiences that may contribute to the field of online
learning. Online learning provides learning and opportunities for students that may not be available in a
traditional classroom setting. Although, there is an urgent need for understanding the real expectations of
students in terms of advanced technology features used in a language course, shared experiences can contribute
to the offerings of online delivery of language courses in the future. Accordingly, students’ considerations can be
addressed in lesson plans and instructional design with the improvements in technology features.
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