COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ONLINE VS. FACE-TO-FACE SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING

This study analyzes students' perceptions of their own learning of Spanish as a second language (L2) when comparing face-to-face (F2F) courses to online (OL) environments before the pandemic. It appears that most students are satisfied learning Spanish in either OL or F2F classes, but their self-reported perception of learning is lower for OL students than F2F participants. It also seems that a higher percentage of F2F participants are more satisfied with the format of their classes (F2F vs OL). It is argued that incorporating more asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) and teacher presence among this particular population of students may increase satisfaction with both learning environment and perception of learning. A further analysis compared Spanish final-exam scores among OL and F2F participants; the results showed that participants in F2F classes obtained statistically significant higher scores than participants in OL classes. Some pedagogical suggestions are presented for this particular population of Spanish as L2 online students.