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Tạp chí cứu Khoa họcđổi - Trường Đại học Mở HàofNội 72 (10/2020) 59-66 Nghiên trao ● Research-Exchange opinion 59 AN OVERVIEW OF STRATEGIES FOR PROMOTING STUDENT ENGAGEMENT IN ONLINE ENGLISH COURSES Pham Dieu Ly, Nguyen Thi Thao* Date received the article: 3/4/2020 Date received the review results: 5/10/2020 Date published the article: 27/10/2020 Abstract: The authors in this study learnt about online education and student engagement in order to find out five effective strategies for promoting student engagement in our online English courses. Online education is defined as any educational undertaking that primarily utilizes the internet to deliver coursework, assessments and assignments from teacher to student. (Ashley, 2019). Whereas, student engagement contains three components: behavioral engagement, emotional engagement and cognitive engagement (Fredricks et al, 2004). These three components are interrelated within individuals, so influenced by three psychological needs: autonomy, relatedness and competence (Hew (2014). In online courses, the following five factors could engage students: (1) problem-oriented learning with clear and comprehensive instructions, (2) instructor accessibility, (3) peer interaction, (4) active learning, and (5) course resources to address participant learning needs since they are influential to individual’s selfness. The authors suggested the strategies based on these factors to improve student engagement in online English courses. Keywords: online education, student engagement, strategies, promoting, English courses, components, psychological needs 1. Introduction The rise of the internet and the easy access that most students have to computers, smartphones, and Wi-Fi networks have powerfully influenced education. Consequently, online education has been considered a key aspect of curriculum in many schools. However, for many people, the expression “online education” is suspicious; both teachers and students are reluctant to get involved in any on- * Faculty of Tourism - Hanoi Open University line courses. There has been a continuous debate on the topic of online learning vs. traditional learning. Such debate emerged when online courses were the best option during Covid-19 coronavirus epidemic. Our authentic experiences, delivering our online English courses and our students’ participation in such courses brought out the insights into the reluctance arosen. The biggest concern is related to the low student engagement which might affect the quality of education. The situation of Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion 60 ‘no other choice’ motivated the authors to seek for effective strategies to promote student engagement. Working through the past studies, we came across the reliable theoretical background about online education and student engagement which helped us give out the solution to our problems. Although there has been any thorough research on the effectiveness of such strategies, positive feedback from our students could be a reliable proof. 2. Online education In the last 20 years, the Internet has grown from being nearly non-existent into the largest, most accessible database of information ever created. It has changed the way people communicate, shop, socialise, do business and think about knowledge and learning. Much more than just a new twist on distance learning, online schooling is changing the face of traditional classrooms and making education more accessible than ever before. What is online education? Online education is a form of education where students use their home computers through the internet. Often online graduation and course programmes, some of which are conducted using digital technologies, are provided via the online learning portal of the host university. Computer-based training, Webbased training, Internet based training, online training, e-learning (electronic learning), m-learning (mobile learning), computer-aided distance education - online education goes by many names and comes in a variety of styles. Today, the term “online education” can be understood as any educational undertaking that primarily utilizes the internet to deliver coursework, assessments and assignments from teacher to student (Ashley, 2019). From this simple definition comes an almost infinite number of ways to teach and learn outside of traditional classrooms and away from college campuses. It can include audio, video, text, animations, virtual training environments and live chats with teachers. It is a rich learning environment with much more flexibility than a traditional classroom. When used to its full potential, online education has been shown to be effective in comparison with pure face-to-face instruction. It can be engaging, fun and tailored to fit students’ needs. 3. Student engagement Student engagement is considered by many educators to be an important aspect of a teaching and learning context because it can influence students’ retention, learning, achievement test scores and graduation (Appleton, Christenson & Furlong, 2008; Fredricks, Blumenfeld & Paris, 2004). Being an abstract construct, student engagement has been defined in various ways. Despite the different definitions, scholars have largely identified student engagement as a construct that contains three components: behavioral engagement, emotional engagement and cognitive engagement (Fredricks et al, 2004). Behavioral or physical engagement involves the idea of participation in an activity and includes the student completing an assignment, or attending classes. Emotional engagement refers to students’ Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion affective responses or feeling towards teachers, peers, the course and learning, whereas cognitive engagement refers to the task-specific thinking that a student employs while undertaking in an activity (Helme & Clarke, 1998). It is important to note that in reality these three components are dynamically interrelated within the in- 61 dividual; they are not isolated processes (Fredricks et al, 2004). 4. Individuals’ psychological needs Hew (2014) presented a possible model of how the three psychological needs might influence the three aspects of engagement. Figure 1. How psychological needs influence aspects of engagement Hew (2014) Autonomy refers to the need for freedom or perceived choice over one’s action. The need for autonomy provides a motivational basis for students’ behavioral engagement because an individual can choose to participate or not to participate in an activity (Skinner, Furrer, Marchand & Kindermann, 2008). Individuals need to feel that they are acting from their own volition and voluntarily participating in an activity, instead of being forced into doing something. However, the notion of autonomy does not imply that guidance from an authority is not needed at all. For some individuals, having autonomy over their own learning may prove to be a bane as they may not know how to pro- ceed in learning a subject matter. It may be the case that learner autonomy is best achieved when, among other things, the teacher acts as a counsellor or a resource (Thanasoulas, 2000). Autonomy also provides a motivational basis for emotional engagement because it is reasonable to assume that the sense of psychological freedom over course activities would likely to engender positive student feelings towards the course itself (Skinner et al, 2008). Relatedness refers to the need for an individual to connect with other people such as with their peers and the instructor. It can predict students’ levels of emotional engagement. Frequent interactions 62 Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion between students and students or between students and the instructor could lead to more positive feelings (ie, stronger emotional engagement) towards the course and learning. The level of interactions can be influenced by the degree of familiarity students have with one another or with the instructor (Cheung, Hew & Ng, 2008). Students tend to interact more with other people they are familiar with. This degree of familiarity may be compromised in courses with large student numbers because it is harder to get to know other people more intimately in the class. Consequently, this could lead to fewer student interactions and eventually weaker emotional engagement towards the course. Competence refers to the need for a person to master one’s pursuits or learning (Helme & Clarke, 1998); hence it may be considered to be a critical motivation factor for students’ cognitive engagement. Competence also provides a motivational basis for behavioral and affective engagement because it is reasonable to assume that a sense of mastery about the topic being studied would encourage a learner to further participate in the course activities, as well as foster positive learner feelings about the course. 5. Influential factors on student engagement in online courses Previous research that examined online courses has suggested several factors that could influence student engagement. These factors include course resources (Sull, 2012) instructor accessibility and passion (Das, 2012), peer interaction (Sull, 2012), active learning (Harrington & Floyd, 2012) and problem-oriented with clear expositions (Kelly, 2012). Figure 2. Factors that influence student engagement (Hew, 2014) Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion The course resources also play a major role in fostering student engagement in online courses. The instructors employed a wide variety of resources and activities such as video lectures, online discussion forums and/or chats, quizzes, weekly tasks, course readings and links to other valuable materials to help engage students and maximize their learning. According to Bangert (2004), using an array of relevant resources and activities is one approach to address the diverse range of learning preferences and skills that participants may bring to the learning environment. Instructor accessibility may be defined as the extent an instructor is willing to interact with course participants. The lack of instructor accessibility is probably one of the greatest criticisms of large-scale education (Warren, Rixner, Greiner & Wong, 2014). A high degree of instructor accessibility is likely to increase the likelihood of student engagement. On the other hand, a low degree of instructor accessibility could cause students to feel that no one is addressing their questions. Moreover, one of the most frequently mentioned traits of instructors who can motivate their students are passionate ones. Specifically, these instructors exhibited a genuine love for subject matters and interest in teaching the students. Peer interactions could encourage knowledge sharing and construction among participants. Probably the most common social component of online courses is the discussion forums (Warren et al, 2014). Engagement is promoted when active learning is emphasized and supported. Bonwell and Eison (1991) define active learning as any task or activity that involves students in doing things and 63 thinking about the things they are doing. Problem-oriented with clear expositions is another important factor. The definition of problem differs among various scholars. Following Merrill (2002), we use the term problem to refer to a range of activities, with the most critical characteristic being that the activity is representative of what a learner might encounter in the world. A problem-oriented instruction is therefore concerned about teaching learners the necessary concepts or skills in order to understand or solve some realworld tasks. 6. Strategies for promoting student engagement in online English courses Based on the theoretical background about online education, student engagement, individuals’ psychological needs, influential factors on student engagement in online courses and their relation, the authors worked together to detail what should be done in our on English courses. The following specific strategies are well presented: (1) course resources to address participant learning needs, (2) instructor accessibility, (3) peer interaction, (4) active learning, and (5) problem-oriented learning with clear and comprehensive instructions. The specific strategies that can be used for each factor are described as follows: (1) Course resources to address participant learning needs We provided clear course information particularly course objectives, course duration, assignment instructions, deadlines, and estimated workload (ie, hours per lesson) so that students knew exactly what they were supposed to do, and how much effort was expected of them. Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion 64 In addition, online video lectures could be slowed down or speeded up to suit students’ listening preference while availability of slides was essential for video lectures to allow students to review the materials. We tried our best to give out a rich resource of relevant course information, including suggestions for further readings, optional videos or self-study worksheets. (2) Instructor accessibility and passion We provided a dedicated class service that allowed our students to contact us for support as soon as possible. In order to avoid being overloaded, we asked the leader of each class to select frequent questions and spent a specific amount of time in each online session directly addressing students’ questions. It was about 15 minutes or up to 30 minutes. Beside that we saved the contact of technical support staff and shared it with our students. As a result, we could avoid any bad impact on the delivery due to technical problems which may seriously affect students’ engagement. Furthermore, being aware of the importance of the teacher’s passion, we worked at a high level of enthusiasm. Luckily, we both shared our great passion for tourism and earned a lot of travel experiences, so we not only delivered the lessons but also raised the students’ love for the industry. As a result, many students were engaged by the excitement that we had about the subject as well as our enthusiasm in teaching it. (3) Peer interaction We employed panel-style discussions that were spontaneous and not re- hearsed in google meet rooms, helping our students feel like they were in the class participating in the dialogue. We provided our students the opportunity in dedicated sub-forums to follow-up or seek clarification from peers regarding the review comments received. At this step, the application of ‘padlet’ was of great help. For example, in one lesson of PET 4, all students posted their ideas of qualities of good hoteliers on a padlet (using the link shared by the teacher). After that, we gave them a specific period of time (5-10 minutes) to respond to their classmates’ ideas. Surprisingly, they were quite excited; which was concluded based on the feedback selected at the end of the lesson. (4) Active learning We used weekly mini-tasks that required students to apply the concepts taught. The assignments were carefully calibrated to be challenging but not impossible by: (1) ensuring that everything that was needed to complete them was covered in the lesson, (2) providing a walk-through of the strategy required to complete the task (guidelines), and (3) providing a template that contained a general outline of the task. For example, based on our instructions and sample application letters, the students wrote an application letter after searching for a job advertisement and completing a resúme. After that we used a required selfassessment activity as part of a student’s mini-task submission. With the aid of a grading rubric associated with the particular work, the students would first evaluate their course mates’ task before self-evaluating their own work. The purpose of self-assessment is for students to judge the quality of their own work after they had seen and graded their peers’ work. Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion Another strategy is that we could play a video which was followed by questions for students’ reflections; in many lessons, a good video both sustained student attention and contributed to the achievement of learning objectives. 65 7. Conclusion Throughout our lessons, we concentrated on something functional in the real world. It was incredibly effective for tourism-related English lessons. When we taught the students in PET4, we made a situation in which a customer with a special interest is looking for a good tourism product. Our students had to design a Nich tourism product to satisfy the customer. Our students were really involved, then during the task, they also reinforced their acquisition of Nich tourism. This article shared the strategies we applied into our English course in the second semester of the school year 20192020 to promote student engagement in fully online courses. The provision of course resources would give students a clear idea of what they are actually supposed to do in the course. The availability of extra course resources also allows students who are interested in a topic to explore it further. These cater to a student’s need for autonomy. Furthermore, the use of various online resources and activities also helped students achieve a sense of mastery of the topics covered. This caters to a student’s need for competence. In addition, instructor accessibility and peer interactions would foster the sense of relatedness which in turn affects students’ affective engagement. Instructor and peer interactions could increase students’ positive feelings towards a course and help them stay engaged. Furthermore, an instructor’s enthusiasm in teaching the course, as well as his/her willingness to interact with students (eg, answer student questions) also plays an important role in meeting students’ need for competency. The use of active learning strategies and problem-oriented learning with clear expositions that focus on making meaningful connections to the real world helps foster a students’ sense of competence in mastering the subject being studied. However, teachers have to take note of the fact that the situation should be conducted step by step. Therefore, stepby-step instruction, providing examples, is requested for students’ better comprehension and task completion. We hope to work with our colleagues to enhance both our professional skills and the effectiveness of online courses we may conduct in the future. Some strategies are likely to be applied in our traditional classrooms as well. We also used LMS quizzes that tested the relevant concepts taught in a particular week to provide immediate feedback to students on their performance. Quizzes contained a mixture of questions that assessed the following types of cognitive processes: understanding, analyzing, applying and evaluating. What is worth noting is the purpose of these quizzes, which was to help students review the course content via one or more of the following strategies: (1) the quizzes reviewed or reinforced the main points covered in the lectures, (2) the quizzes gave clear answer explanations, and (3) the quizzes allowed multiple retakes of the questions. (5) Problem‐oriented with clear exposition 66 Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion References: Island: Korea. 1. Appleton, J. J., Christenson, S. L. & Furlong, M. J. (2008). Student engagement with school: critical conceptual and methodological issues of the construct. Psychology in the Schools. 10. Hew, K. F. & Cheung, W. S. (2014). 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Author Address: English Department - Faculty of Tourism - Hanoi Open University Email: lypd@hou.edu.vn