Instructor-Led Teaching Versus E-Learning: Challenges and Opportunities

ABSTRACT

During and after the Covid-19-induced lockdown, online teaching has attained an unprecedented status like never before all over the world. Teachers and students have been compelled to fall in line with the new normal of virtual classrooms. Even though many teachers and students have expressed their inconvenience of virtual classrooms, it has become mandatory to adapt their teaching and learning styles to cope with the exasperating times triggered by the coronavirus. The survey presented in this paper was conducted among second and third-year engineering students of a private university in India just before the Covid-19 outbreak. The objective of the survey was to understand which method is more suitable for learning English skills for the engineering students. The students' attitude and perception toward online and teacher-led sessions have been unveiled through qualitative and quantitative data. The participants have weighed the pros and cons of both the methods according to their specific needs, and the results suggest that in order to have a balanced teaching-learning process, the students require both the methods. It has been identified that students' needs play a major role while choosing between online or teacher-led sessions. Though the modern generation relies more on technology, teacher-led sessions have not lost the sheen and are considered an effective way of learning due to various factors such as human interaction, direct guidance, and knowledge-sharing possibilities.