Abstract:

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the concept of education all around the world is undergoing a major transformation. Online learning has been at the core of this shift from its very beginning. The „new normal“ in education has brought an increase in the use of online learning tools and new ways of learning. As with most teaching methods, online learning and different learning methods and strategies have their own set of positives and negatives.

Thanks to the sudden switch to online teaching in the middle of the semester, students can compare their digital with the analog versions of their classes. The survey described in this paper has been conducted with the aim of finding out what university students of foreign languages in the Republic of Croatia have to say about the differences between online and traditional teaching. On top of that it examines what they find positive and what negative in online teaching, and in the sudden switch to online teaching in the middle of the semester and do they look forward to online education as “the future”? Last, but not least is the part of the survey that deals with the question: What are the possible future applications of positive parts of online teaching at the universities? Data for this survey were collected through an online questionnaire. Participants of the survey were foreign language bachelor students from various universities in the Republic of Croatia. Decoding and understanding student’s opinions about the online education in the Covid 19 pandemic, its positives, and negatives, as well as the possible future applications of its positive sides can help universities in creating strategies for more efficiency in delivering the lessons, and for an uninterrupted learning journey for students.

Keywords:

Online learning, traditional teaching, foreign languages, Covid 19, learning strategies.