Abstract:

This study explores the factors causing the decline in reading proficiency among first year university students as perceived during the period of shifting from face to face to remote online learning. Twenty university students were randomly selected from one rural Higher Education institution in the Eastern Cape (EC) province of South Africa. Data were collected using online questionnaires and analyzed using quantitative approach to a case study. The findings from the analyzed data reveals a lack of intervention strategies with regards to teaching language aspects such as reading because in an online platform students work through recorded lectures and other teaching material at their own pace. However, most learning is being done through the aspect of speaking, due to various challenges students have no equitable access on exploring the online platforms to engage on this activity resulting in unavailability of network connectivity as per their home backgrounds. Online learning can be lonely, the study additional reveals that some students were found to have begun to feel a strong sense of isolation that slowly erodes their desire to learn. Furthermore, the findings demonstrated that blended learning when teaching a language encourages personalization of the online experience by combining the best aspects of face-to-face teaching with online technology-based methods to give students more comprehensive and understanding of the course content. The study recommends that, approaches such as social learning be used during online teaching to enable students to interact with instructors as well as encourage reading by the use of voice notes can be used to enhance reading skills.

Keywords:

Reading, remote learning, blended learning.