Abstract

Advancement in technology has brought a positive change in pedagogical practices.

The development started with the integration of technology as a tool for teaching

and has reached e-learning and Flipped-learning. In this study, the features of e-learning and Flippedlearning are compared from the perspective of technology and pedagogy in practice. To collect the

data, English language teachers of public sector colleges and universities, who had attended online

courses and blended courses, were selected for focus group

discussion through purely judgmental sampling. The questions for

focus group discussion were based on the Stephen Bax’s (2003)

criteria to compare different phases of CALL. The research

highlights that flipped-learning gives more support and freedom

to the learner to work at his own pace, whereas e-learning gives

more opportunities for independent learning. There is no face-toface interaction in e-learning, whereas, in flipped-learning, the

learners get a chance to interact in real-time. The participants of

e-learning courses were urged to incorporate some sort of realtime interaction, whether online or face-to-face.

Key Words

E-Learning, FlippedLearning, Pedagogical

Approach, Technology

Integrated,

Synchronous,

Asynchronous

p-ISSN 2520-0348 | e-ISSN 2616-793X | L-ISSN 2616-793X | DOI: 10.31703/gssr

Introduction

Learning outcome is the ultimate focus of any education system. It is meant to manage the curriculum

in such a way that its learners learn the target content in a capacity to utilize it in their practical life

meaningfully. To achieve this objective, different pedagogical practices have been introduced and

applied at different times for multiple types of learners. In the 20th century, after the introduction of

technology, the traditional classrooms were customized by integrating technology in the physical

classrooms to maximize learning and to make it empirically more effective. In technology, integrated

classrooms technology was used as a tool or as an audio-video aid to support and enhance learning.

According to Bax (2003), “in integrative approaches, students learn to use a variety of technological

tools as an ongoing process of learning.”

This customization continued to achieve the core objective of education, and at the verge of the

20th and 21st century, along with technologically enhanced learning as well as technologically integrated

learning, e-learning also got popularity amongst education circles. E-learning is learning or accessing

education through electronic technologies. E-learning was introduced after the invention of the internet,

as it is a form of distance learning in which communication between the tutor and the learner and

amongst learners is possible only through the internet. In e-learning, students interact with teachers,

asking for tutoring services and questions on topics, as well as students also communicate with their

peers. Students have access to technological media that enable them to participate in several groups of

knowledge. (Aparicio, 2013). The emergence of e-learning made education more globalized and also

expanded free access to education.

However, e-learning is a sort of replication of traditional classrooms in certain aspects. As in ecourses, also, the students are expected to read the material sent by the tutor, carry out the assignments,

accordingly, participate in the assessment tests on a regular basis and meet the deadlines. E-learning

requires certain software to be downloaded on the computer of the learner to make him/her access the

online platform for learning. In e-learning, the learner has more autonomy, and the tutor just organizes

the learning environment. The learners also have to participate in the discussions and conduct some

sort of research in e- courses. Subsequently, tutors assess and evaluate their learning.

Key Words:

E-Learning, FlippedLearning, Pedagogical

Approach, Technology

Integrated,

Synchronous,

Asynchronous

p-ISSN 2520-0348 | e-ISSN 2616-793X | L-ISSN 2616-793X | DOI: 10.31703/gssr.2019(IV-II).55 | URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.31703/gssr.2019(IV-II).55

Abstract

Ejaz Mirza and Muhammad Haseeb Nasir

431 Global Social Sciences Review (GSSR)

There are some problems related to e-learning that have been observed by the e-learners as well as the

researchers. For example, in the process of e-learning, the communication is asynchronous, and there is

comparatively less support and facilitation from the tutor. Secondly, there is no real-time interaction between

learners and tutors in some e-learning practices. The online sessions with the tutor, if there are any, are just in the

form of video-recorded lectures that do not develop any type of critical thinking or conceptual understanding among

the learners.

The experiments with e-learning proved that real-time interaction with the teacher or tutor is also required for

true learning. As in e-learning through the learners are autonomous, and they can work at their own pace and can

learn through research; still, they need an environment like a physical classroom in which they can interact with

the teacher as well as with their peers to develop their critical thinking and share their knowledge. Consequently,

this realization gave way to blended learning, also known as flipped learning. Flipped learning is a pedagogical

approach that is a combination of traditional physical classroom and e-learning, but it has shifted the centre of the

classroom from the teacher to the learner. Flipped Learning Network (2014) defines flipped learning as: “a

pedagogical approach in which direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning

space and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic interactive learning environment where the

educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter.”

Some people may confuse flipped learning with flipped classroom. Flipped Learning Network (2014) has

clarified this confusion by defining the four pillars of flipped learning. In the flipped classroom the teachers assign

their learners some study material or videos etc., to read and watch before coming to the classroom, and when they

come to the classroom, they are engaged in discussions and other such activities that can develop their critical

thinking. Assigning supplementary reading or videos can be done through online digital resources or without that.

Whereas, flipped learning is a type of learning environment in which teacher is flexible about expectations of the

students’ timeline and assessment of their learning. The mode of instruction is usually shifted to learner-centered

approach where learners explore the content in more depth and construct their knowledge through participation in

different creative and critical activities. Teachers who adopt flipped learning, besides developing the concepts of

their learners, provide their learners opportunities to think critically and creatively, give them feedback and assess

their work accordingly.

Flipped learning may be an old pedagogical approach, but a new 21st-century term. Flipped learning in this

age of technology is also known as blended e-learning. Many studies have been conducted in the past eight years

on the effectiveness of flipped learning and on the comparison of traditional classrooms and the flipped classrooms.

Some researchers like Kashada (2014) have worked on the challenges of flipped learning and some have conducted

the experimental studies to study the efficacy of flipped classrooms for developing learning. However, the

researchers have hardly found any research in which the flipped learning has been compared with e-learning. The

reason behind this may be that as the flipped learning phenomenon has emerged with the development of

technology, the professionals who are practising flipped learning use electronic online resources to manage the

outside classroom material sharing, therefore, blended e-learning may be confused with flipped-learning.

Rationale for the Study

The current study is aimed at finding the features of flipped learning that are shared by e-learning and identifying

the areas in which the flipped learning may be different from e-learning. The aspect of the study that makes it

different from the previous studies in the field is that these pedagogical approaches are being explored through the

feedback of the ELT professionals whose pedagogical skills have been developed through these approaches. Many

descriptive and experimental studies have been conducted to explore the application and effectiveness of e-learning

and flipped learning, separately, in different fields of education. Some content analysis studies have also been

conducted to find out what other researchers have explored about these areas of learning. The current study will

focus on the application of e-learning and flipped learning in teacher education. The study will highlight the

similarities and differences in the features of both types of learning environments.

This study will help the researchers and the ELT professionals to identify features of flipped-learning that make

it different from e-learning. The study will help the ELT professionals to recognize their role in flipped learning and

will assist them in designing such activities for their learners that shift the focus of teaching from the teacher to the

learners, and that could make their learners develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills in a more

flexible environment.

Research Questions

The current study is conducted to answer the following questions:

Ejaz Mirza and Muhammad Haseeb Nasir

432 Global Social Sciences Review (GSSR)

i. What are the tasks carried out by the ELT professionals in the e-courses; how similar and different they are

from the courses conducted through flipped learning approach?

ii. What are the tutors and learners’ activities in flipped learning and e-learning modes of education?

iii. What is the position of computer and the internet in e-learning and flipped learning modes of education?

Scope of the Study

The current study is designed to find out the distinguishing features of e-learning and flipped-learning in ELT

teacher education. There are many platforms that provide ELT teachers opportunities to develop their professional

skills. Some of the platforms are purely e-learning platforms that manage distance teacher education courses

through online classrooms and some of them promote blended and flipped-learning, in which some of the tasks

are managed from distance through online resources and some of the sessions are conducted in real time, face to

face. However, the study will take into account only selective massive online courses like Teaching Grammar to

young learners, courses offered by US state department through E-teacher Scholarship program and international

resource person courses organized by HEC, Pakistan like Research Methods and Transforming English Language

Skills (TELS). The data for the study will be gathered from the ELT professionals who have attended these courses.

Literature Review

Technology has affected our life in multiple ways. Living in the digital world and being the digital natives, we have

normalized and naturalized technology in almost all domains of our lives. Teaching and learning is also one of the

important domains of our lives that have been affected by technology. E-learning and flipped-learning are the latest

trends in the teaching and learning contexts, and are also known as pedagogical approaches being applied for

effective learning.

Many researchers have studied e-learning and flipped-learning in different teaching learning contexts. Elearning refers to any electronically assisted instruction and is often associated with instruction offered via computer

and the internet. (Li, 2014) In e-learning, learning is facilitated by transmission of knowledge and through managing

autonomous learning by the learner. Flipped instruction on the other hand requires self-directed learning outside

the classroom through discovery and experimentation, not necessarily under the supervision of an instructor

(Karaaslan, 2017). According to Balaji (2018), in a flipped-learning environment learners “study at their home using

the modern technology, such as listening to screencasts of the teacher, and they will do practical assignments, such

as debates, discussions and problem-solving, in the classroom.”

To be successful in flipped-learning, people need to have the ability to manage their own learning and to

develop critical thinking that will ensure that they are confident at communicating with the web in order to engage,

participate, and get involved with learning activities. Learners also need to have ability and competence of using

different tools in order to engage in meaningful interaction. There are critical abilities, such as collaboration,

creativity, and a flexible mindset, that are “pre-requisites for active learning in a changing and complex learning

environment without the provision of too much organized guidance by facilitators” (Kop, 2011)

Flipped-classroom is mostly used in science subjects and there is lot of research on the use of flipped-learning

in science subjects, but it has been rarely applied or experimented in a language classroom. Balaji (2018) has

experimented this approach for teaching language in ELT classroom. He hypothesized his study as, “by flipping the

classroom in ELT context, a teacher can successfully ingrain difficult concepts such as active voice or indirect speech

into slow bloomers.”

Different researches have been consulted to get information about e-learning and flipped-learning. Most of

them focus on e-learning and flipped--learning separately. Some of them have based their research on comparative

study of flipped-learning and the traditional classroom. The current study is focused on comparing e-learning with

flipped-learning in ELT teacher education to see how effective both the strategies are in teacher education and how

similar and how different are the experiences of the ELT professionals who have experienced them.

Research Methodology

This research is descriptive in nature and follows qualitative approach to highlight the features of flipped-learning

and e-learning. Focused group interviews technique was applied to gather data from ten ELT professionals to

explore the similarities and differences in the features of flipped-learning and e-learning. As the current study is

aimed at exploring flipped-learning and e-learning in ELT teacher education therefore, the population for the

research is ELT professionals who have attended ELT training courses managed through electronic environment

and flipped-learning.

Ten ELT professionals have been selected as a sample to participate in focused group interviews and to select

A Comparative Study of Flipped-Learning and E-Learning in ELT Teacher Education

Vol. IV, No. II (Spring 2019) 433

the requisite sample non-probability, purposive sampling technique was used as the researchers have used their

own judgment to select those ELT professionals to gather data who have attended certain ELT training courses

through e-learning as well as flipped learning. Three of the participants participated only in e-learning, three of

them participated online in flipped-learning and four of them had the experience of both. The instrument or tool to

gather data was focused group interviews along with observations by the researchers. The researchers have designed

certain questions to guide the focus group discussion (as attached in Appendix) and took help from colleagues to

manage the interviews using said questions. The researchers recorded the responses of the participants of the

focused group interviews for analysis to draw conclusions of the study.

To design the guiding questions for the focused group interviews, the researcher adapted the Stephen Bax’s

(2003) criteria to compare different phases of CALL. To compare the three phases of CALL, restricted CALL, open

CALL and integrated CALL, Stephen Bax suggested certain parameters on which these phases can be called and it

can be observed how one phase is similar to or different from the other. Those parameters include:

• Type of task: What type of tasks or activities are done to cover the lesson.

• Type of student activity: What the students are supposed to do in those activities.

• Type of feedback: What type of feedback is given, correct/incorrect or some remarks, comments etc.

• Teacher roles: What role is performed by the teacher, monitor, guide, facilitator etc.

• Teacher’s attitude: Is the teacher a conventional symbol of fear or he/she is friendly?

• Position in curriculum: Is computer integrated or only computer is used, or computer is used before content

etc.

• Position in lesson: Whole CALL lesson, or lesson in parts

• Physical position of computer: Personal computer is used, or computer lab is used or only teacher uses the

computer etc.

All of these criteria were not used. They were used only as a guideline to form the questions.

Data Analysis

Data gathered through interviews is presented in the form of a table in which responses of the participants have
been recorded in the form of a table in which responses related to e-learning and flipped-learning for each question
have been recorded in parallel to find out similarities and differences in their features. Then their responses have
been discussed to reach to the conclusion.
In the following table, data gathered as responses to different questions related to the features of e-learning
and flipped-learning is presented.
S. No Guiding Questions Responses
E-Learning Flipped-learning
1 What was the duration of
your course?
i. 8 weeks (MOOCs)
ii. 10 weeks (E-teacher
scholarship program)
i. 8 months (Research Methods)
ii. 1 year (TELS)
2 What type of tasks did
you do in the course?
i. Reading articles
ii. Participating in the
discussion (in form of
writing our response to a
question or other
participants, views
iii. Taking tests and doing
assignments
i. Reading articles online to explore
the concepts
ii. Research to practice the concepts
learnt online
iii. Discussion in face-to-face sessions
about what we learnt and the action
research which we conducted in our
own time
3 Were you involved in
group work or individual
work?
i. Usually individual work.
ii. Only once got a chance to
work in pair with another
learner who was physically
away.
i. Worked on our own, individually,
when away the class working in our
own pace.
ii. Group discussion to evaluate one
another’s work
4 Did you get a chance to
interact with your tutor
and your peers?
i. Never had face to face
interaction
ii. Interaction through email or
discussion board.
i. Online support from the tutors was
always available.
ii. Had 4-5 face to face sessions of one
week each with the tutor and other
peers
Ejaz Mirza and Muhammad Haseeb Nasir
434 Global Social Sciences Review (GSSR)
5 Were you engaged in
some sort of research as
a course completion
requirement?
i. The final assessment was a
research project.
ii. One research project related
to the topic
i. To complete the course, we had to
complete an action research project
(Research methods)
ii. Develop materials for language
teaching, selecting reading texts and
designing activities (TELS)
6 What was the method of
assessment and
evaluation of your
performance?
i. Quiz
ii. Assignments
iii. Mid-term test
iv. Participation in discussion
board
v. Project work
i. No formal assessment
ii. Evaluation of our research projects
and guidelines about that
iii. Evaluation of lesson plans and
materials and oral feedback to
improve
7 What method was
applied to provide you
the feedback on your
performance?
i. Score and grades i. Oral and written feedback on how to
improve our work
8 What was the tutor’s
activity in the course?
ii. Uploading reading material
iii. Giving and evaluating
assignment
iv. Assessing quizzes and
midterm
v. Giving deadlines for
completion of task
vi. Announcing the course
completion
i. Directing towards the readings
resources from where we could get
help
ii. Evaluating our work
iii. Managing discussions and
monitoring discussions
iv. Giving feedback and support
9 How was computer and
internet applied to the
course?
i. Every activity was managed
through internet. If internet
access was not available
course could not be
completed
i. Internet was used to consult online
resources and readings and interact
and send our work to the tutors
when he was away
ii. Computer was used to compile our
work
10 What type of
development will you
suggest to develop the
course further for future
participants?
ii. Many a times, there was a
confusion or difficulty that
the tutor was required to
discuss and address but it
could not be done.
iii. Some type of face to face or
online live interaction must
be there between the tutor
and the course participants.
i. Some of the participants of the
course felt that there would have
been some more face to face
sessions.
ii. The course provided us the ample
space to develop learning at our own
pace
Some observations made during the focus group discussion have helped the researchers to compare e-learning with
flipped-learning. It was observed that the courses that were purely online were shorter as compared to flipped
courses, as the duration of e-courses was 8-10 weeks, whereas flipped courses were usually eight months to one
year long. In the e-courses the participants or the learners never got a chance of face-to-face interaction whereas
in flipped-learning the face-to-face sessions were quite regular. The communication in e-learning was asynchronous,
whereas in flipped-learning it was synchronous and including real time interaction. In e-courses the learners mostly
worked individually, only once or twice they got a chance to work with other learners whereas flipped-learning is
more collaborative as the learners worked on the materials by their own, but during the face-to-face sessions they
had discussions in groups for more in-depth learning.
It was also observed that in flipped-learning the learners got plenty of time to conduct research, and their tasks
were more creative and research oriented. Their work was evaluated for their further development and the feedback
was not in the form of scores rather it was comments and points for further development, whereas in e-courses the
learners tasks were more traditional like assignment, quizzes, reading and limited time for research, their work was
assessed by the instructor and the feedback was in the form of scores that was quite intimidating, and what they
did once was assessed and could not be improved.
In e-courses, as the whole learning is managed through internet, so the teachers’ role is to assign reading,
giving and assessing assignments and quizzes, uploading reading materials and students’ score etc. On the other
hand, in flipped-learning along with internet and computer, face-to-face discussions were also managed by the
A Comparative Study of Flipped-Learning and E-Learning in ELT Teacher Education
Vol. IV, No. II (Spring 2019) 435
teacher to develop critical thinking and analytical skills of the learners. The teacher’s role was more like a guide
and facilitator and mediator, as the teacher directed the learners towards readings and study materials, whereas
the learners themselves search for the relevant material and used to read it to understand the concept, they used
internet and computer to search for the relevant information and to compile their work. The teacher in the flippedlearning environment just directed the learners towards the study material, managed the discussions, mediated them
and evaluated the learners’ work and suggested improvement. Rest of the leaning was learners’ responsibility that
made them more autonomous.
The learners of the flipped-learning environment were quite satisfied with their learning, however, the
participants of the e-courses wanted to have some more real time interaction with the instructor and the other
students, whether it be through online platforms or it may be face-to-face.


Conclusion

It is however, concluded that both e-learning and flipped-learning are effective techniques in teacher education as

both of them promote learner autonomy. However, flipped-learning promotes critical thinking and facilitation and

support from the tutor as compared to e-learning. In flipped-learning, learning environment is more flexible;

however, it is more systematic in e-learning. In flipped-learning the tutor performs the role of a manager, an

evaluator, monitor and a facilitator as well as a guide. Whereas, in e-learning, the tutor is the manager and the

evaluator. In e-learning the whole learning occurs through computer and internet, whereas, flipped-learning is a

blend of interaction through computer as well as real life interaction for application of knowledge. If we evaluate

them on blooms taxonomy, flipped-learning reaches to the level of application also. However, as suggested by the

participants, if some sort of live interaction is also blended into the e-learning, it will be equally effective.

References

• Aparicio, M. (2013). E-learning concept trends. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, (pp. 81-86). New York.
• Balaji, A. (2018). Flipping the Classroom in ELT Context. International Journal of Science Research and Review, 7(1), 75-77.
• Bax, S. (2003). CALL- past, present and future. iateflcompsig (pp. 13-28). Elsevier Science Ltd.