WEBQUESTS TO PROMOTE ORAL COMPREHENSION AND REDUCE ANXIETY IN FLIPPED LEARNING AND IN TRADITIONAL ENGLISH CLASSES: A MIXED METHOD STUDY

Abstract

Online education has become a necessity and blended approaches have gained momentum since the COVID-19 pandemic. Nowadays, the use of online resources combined with traditional strategies is being widely adopted in education. The new scenario is outpacing theoretical frameworks and research results, and empirical data is needed to assess the effectiveness of new teaching modalities to promote learners' achievement. In the field of language teaching, there is a paucity of studies offering empirical data on the use of combined educational strategies. The current paper aims to investigate the effect of WebQuests in two settings -Traditional (face-to-face) classes and flipped learning classes- on improving English listening skills and decreasing L2 listening anxiety. The study adopts a quasi-experimental design, with 96 participants of preparatory education learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Egypt. Three groups were selected randomly: The first experimental group used WebQuests in flipped learning; the second experimental group studied with WebQuests in a traditional (face-to-face) setting; and the control group studied through regular teaching with no WebQuests. A pre-test was used to assess students' L2 listening competence in the three groups. After the intervention, a post-test was given to the three groups to explore the improvement in their listening skills. Additionally, a pre-and-post foreign language listening anxiety questionnaire was used to check the effect of WebQuests on decreasing listening anxiety in the English classroom. The results showed that WebQuests are efficient strategies in teaching English, but the results are more significant in flipped learning.