The Potential of Flipped Classrooms to Promote Student Engagement: Iranian EFL Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices in Focus[پايان نامه لاتين]

Hasanali Ghofran

The flipped classroom is recognized as an effective and innovative instructional approach that has changed from traditional teacher-centered instruction to learner-centered learning practice. The advancements in communication and information technology brought about a paradigm shift in the learning and teaching practices by creating a learning environment conducive to wider behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement in the learning and teaching process. Given the potential of the flipped classroom to affect student engagement in the English language learning context, the present study explored Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions toward this approach, their understanding of the benefits and challenges involved and the practices they utilized in this environment. To this end, a qualitative study was carried out with 40 Iranian EFL teachers. In the first stage of this research study, 40 teachers were invited to complete an open-ended questionnaire, targeting both their perceptions of the flipped model and the practices they used. Subsequently, in order to examine their understanding of the benefits and challenges of the flipped approach to language teaching instructions, online semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten Iranian EFL teachers. After aggregating the whole data, the teachers’ responses were analyzed through some stages of coding and descriptive analysis by means of MAXQDA. The content and thematic analysis was chosen as the main method of data analysis. The research findings revealed how Iranian EFL teachers positively perceived the flipped classroom, believing that this novel approach would help learners gain autonomy and build up confidence. It also showed that teachers mainly used pair/group work and discussions to engage students inside the class. As for the advantages of the flipped classroom, the majority of the teacher participants were on the belief that this model would make learners autonomous and improve their learning. Finally, regarding the challenges of the flipped approach, teachers were of the opinion that the students would be under more pressure and need to have technological literacy. Altogether, the yielded findings would be beneficial for teachers, teacher educators, language researchers, and education policymakers in charge of decision-making to integrate technological advancements into language teaching instructions and consider the flipped model as a practical alternative to traditional teacher-centered approaches.