the effect of conventional and online active learning spaces on undergraduate tefl students’ writing proficiency

With the extension of online education worldwide, scholars recently turned their attention to finding more practical techniques facilitating efl students’ process of learning how to write in online spaces. in this regard, the current quasi-experimental study investigated the impact of two distinct techniques, namely conventional and active learning, on 24 male and female undergraduate tefl students’ writing proficiency. the participants were randomly divided into two equal conventional and active learning experimental groups who received instructions on how to develop an argumentative essay over eight sessions. two distinct but similar writing tests were also taken as a pretest and posttest to trace the extent to which the participants made progress. the pretests and posttests were rated based on knoch’s (2009) assessment criteria. the result of the paired-samples t-tests indicated that both groups’ level of writing proficiency enhanced dramatically after the intervention. however, the independent sample t-test revealed no significant difference between the performance of the two groups. it was then suggested that both techniques can be influential in improving students’ writing proficiency; however, more time is required to find out the degree to which these techniques differ in terms of their effectiveness. the finding of this study has some pedagogical implications for teacher educators to enhance both pre-service and in-service teachers’ instructional competence by training them on how to use conventional and active learning techniques in online spaces, for teachers to utilize these techniques in their classes to help efl students make progress in writing, and for course designers to design online courses providing the opportunities for implementing these techniques.