Students' Perceptions of Flipped Approach in EFL Classroom: a Survey Research

Abstract

For generations, teachers have taught their students through conventional teaching in the classroom. The underlying idea of this type of teaching is that, most of the teaching and learning process takes place in the classroom. However, conventional teaching is considered as ineffective, inefficient and irrelevant pedagogical approach in the classroom. A new pedagogical approach called as a Flipped Classroom is introduced. It is a new teaching paradigm which reverses the situation in the conventional teaching. In flipped classroom, students acquire their knowledge at home by watching videos and/or reading passages as their homework. Thereafter, school time will be used to apply their knowledge in the form of problem solving and practical work. As it is in the Flipped Classroom, it is possible to utilize technology during the Flipped Learning processes. Moreover, the focus of this study is to investigate students’ perceptions on Flipped Approach with the utilization of E-learning platform in EFL Classroom. Perceptions can be classified into two categories; there are Bottom-Up perception and Top-Down perception, in which Bottom-Up perception is determined by people’s optical flows, while Top-Down perception is as something processed through people’s previous experiences. In this research, the researcher decided to implement the theory of Top-Down perception. In addition, Flipped Learning processed became students’ previouse experience. Furthermore, This research involved 42 sophomore English majors of Advanced Writing C Class at Jember University. the data were collected through questionnaires (Flipped Learning Experience and Technology Acceptance Model) and flipped note, and then it was analyzed statistically through SPSS 16.0 by using the formula of Descriptive Statistics. The analysis of the questionnaires revealed that in general, the theory-based flipped classroom treatment motivated the students in learning the materials enhanced the students’ knowledge, improved their writing ability, and engaged xiii them more in the learning tasks. It is notable, however, during the pre-class and in-class activities there were some students who underf performance by showing their low motivation and passive engagement. This case happened might be because the students did not aware about the Flipped Learning, as this study was only conducted in the half semester. Thus, in general Flipped Approach gave beneficial outcomes for students.