ONLINE DISTANCE LEARNERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND NEEDS FOR PERSONALIZED LEARNING IN ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE COURSES

Abstract

The rapid development of e-learning in higher education institutions has facilitated personalized learning pathways for learning to be relevant, catering to the individual learners’ needs and expectations. In spite of the vast opportunities that e-learning offers, the online courses in distance language education in Iran failed to satisfactorily engage students. There is little effort to empower and give voice to students to improve instruction. Therefore, the aim of the study was to explore the needs and expectations of EFL students enrolled in online English courses at a distance learning institution. The study also examined the students’ perceptions for a learner-centred approach, using personalized learning (PL) in their online English courses. A total of 200 students participated in the survey and five of them were invited to be interviewed. The study explored the issues in the existing online English courses, the students’ expectations of an English course and their perceptions towards a PL approach for their online English courses. The results revealed the EFL students needed more support, multimedia learning resources, opportunities to practice speaking and listening, and a friendly communicative environment. The findings indicated that most students had positive perceptions on PL. The study suggested that distance education systems need to incorporate PL into online courses as a solution to address the students’ learning needs.