Potential benefits and limitations of online learning applications for English education in Korea

Youn Sujin Thu May 01 2008, 11:11

I have once attended a meeting at KNU Language Institute as an assistant of the meeting. The main purpose of the meeting was to introduce online language learning system, especially for English conversation classes in KNU. The system seemed to be effective and student-oriented, however; I could also point out some inevitable defects of the system. In the following paragraphs, I am going to present the benefits and limits of online learning applications in English education.

First of all, the advantage we may get from online learning applications is that students can receive English education of high-quality whenever, and wherever they are. This easy access to education also enables students to take lessons again and again until they understand the whole lesson, and teachers not to waste their time covering the same teaching material. For an example, when I was taking an online TOEIC course, I was free from time restriction. I could meet the tutor online whenever I wanted, even late at night. Moreover, the best thing about the online course was I could take the same lesson, which helped me not to miss important topics of each section.

On contrary, we can face some problems when adapting online learning application to English education. One of the problems is about evaluating students' achievement, which was the most controversial matter at KNU meeting. As a matter of fact, one of my friends took an online test, which was given from online learning course, and he asked his friends to help him with the test. He got a good score, however, it was not his own performance. What's more, teachers may give students lessons and tasks but they can't give immediate feedbacks to their students while giving lectures because the students are not in classroom condition. I felt that problem on my own when taking online classes, too. I couldn't solve additional problem set myself and it is no wonder that I couldn't raise my hand and ask questions while taking a lecture.

In conclusion, English education based on online learning application has both merits and demerits. It provides easy and free access to English education for students and time-effective. On the other hand, it is not appropriate for accurate evaluation, and direct feedback. Every teaching method has its strong points and weak points. If online learning application for English education is adjusted properly, we could expect satisfying result from it.