The challenges of online language education: Students’ and teachers’ experiences of EAP writing course

Abstract

As the Covid-19 has started unfolding, all the educational institutions including universities of Bangladesh has transformed its traditional classroom setting to online platform in order to conduct class. Therefore, it has become important to know the classes that are being conducted in online platforms are effective enough for students to learn. This study aims to investigate the challenges of online language education where the researcher specifically focused on online EAP (English for Academic Purposes) writing courses. Here, the researcher finds out the students’ and teachers’ perceptions regarding online EAP writing courses and the challenges they face in this term. The researcher also aims to find how the problems are being solved by teachers and students if they face any problem in online class. For this study, the researcher has targeted tertiary level students of private universities of Bangladesh. The researcher has implemented both qualitative and quantitative research method to collect data through surveys and in-depth interviews. To complete the survey, the participants are given questionnaires online through Google form in order to gather data. The participants are also interviewed over phone since the pandemic situation would not allow the researcher to collect data from the participants in person. The researcher has targeted 8 participants for this study where 6 of the participants are students and 2 of the participants are the teachers of EAP online writing courses. The researcher has illustrated the results with participants’ own words. The survey responses are presented through likert scale.