Integrating flipped classroom approach into traditional English class

Abstract

With the advancements in technology, educational specialists in various subject areas employ different teaching techniques to motivate the students. Each student's background knowledge, his/her techniques and strategies for learning are different; which in turn affect students' performances. In traditional methods of language teaching, most of the class time is allocated for covering the subject and the students are responsible for their own practice. Flipped classroom, which reverses the learning process, allows students follow their own pace of learning via videos proposed by the teacher and the class time is allocated mostly for practice, discussion and question-answer. The purpose of this study is to investigate how Flipped classroom is experienced in a tertiary level EFL classroom in Turkey. It focuses on students' performance in a Flipped classroom comparing it with a Traditional classroom by using a quasi-experimental design. It also uses interviews, teaching journal and an attitude questionnaire to analyze students' and the teacher's perceptions towards the new teaching approach. Concluding from the results of pre-post tests, there is not a statistically significant difference between the scores of control and experimental groups. However, the results of attitude questionnaire, interviews showed that the students have a positive attitude towards Flipped Classroom. Additionally, the data from teaching journal resulted in positive attitude of the teacher towards the new teaching/learning approach, too.