EFL Students’ Perceptions About The Effect Of Blended Learning On Their Learning Autonomy

Abstract

For the past few years, education has witnessed a lot of core changes due to the pandemic. There were times when traditional face-to-face teaching was impossible to execute. So, the need to find an alternate way of teaching became the subject of discussion. In response to that, blended learning was implemented in higher education. It has been a while now since the adaptation of the new mode of learning and different opinions about its effectiveness have come to the surface. The present study investigates EFL students' attitudes towards the implementation of blended learning and its effect on their learning autonomy, i.e., whether it helped improve their tendency to study independently and become self-reliant (a positive effect) or not. Accordingly, a questionnaire of 35 items, divided into three main sections, was administered to a random sample of 53 second-year students at the Department of English Language-ENS. The findings indicate that the participants expressed more positive attitudes towards implementing blended learning and perhaps even consider it the new norm. The majority have manifested some of the characteristics that can be found in an autonomous learner, such as being reflective, self-aware, motivated, independent, etc. However, their capacity or ability to take charge of the learning process is still in the making. It needs guidance and instruction from the teacher so they can be fully prepared. Since the teacher is the one going to monitor students' autonomy and reinforce it, training them beforehand and giving them first-hand experience of the concept of learning autonomy must be taken into account for the implementation of blended learning to succeed.