Web-based English for Computer Science: Students’ Evaluation of Course Effectiveness

Abstract

The recent expansion of web-based education as a promising practice marks the shift from the traditional teacher-centred to a learner-centred classroom. As English for specific purposes (ESP) is a learner-centred approach, web-based instruction ably serves its principles of autonomous learning, independent decision-making, time and space flexibility, and the changing role of teachers from instructors to facilitators. Thus, evaluating the success of web-based instruction in an ESP context is worthy of enquiry. Students. course evaluation has become a vital source of data for teachers to make judgments on course delivery and determine the value of their instruction. This paper seeks to gauge the effectiveness of a web-delivered ESP course to 42 Master students of Computer Science at Biskra University. It also aims to determine the extent of the instructor's accomplishment in bridging the objectives of the course to meet the needs of the learners. To do so, a summative evaluation checklist was utilized as a research instrument. The findings revealed that the engagement in different online practices besides the teacher's feedback received students. approval. However, students disclosed their dissatisfaction of the artificial interaction of the web-delivered instruction, which seems to fail to prepare them for academic and professional challenges.