Comparing Between University Students' Presentation Performances in an Online and Face-to-Face Classroom Environment From the Perspectives of Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency

During the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, more schools have started online English classes in 2019. However, there is little agreement on the differences in students' performances between online and face-to­face lessons. Therefore, this study examines the differences in the speech performance of 61 university students vis-à-vis face-to-face and online classes in terms of grammatical accuracy, speed fluency, repair fluency, syntactic complexity, and lexical complexity. The results show that there are significant differences in the fluency of students' presentations between face-to-face and online classes, thus demonstrating that students are able to speak English more fluently and with fewer false starts or unnecessary repetitions in online classes. A possible reason for this finding is that the participants of this study are at the beginner level; thus, it is suggested that they do not have confidence in speaking English in the physical presence of many classmates. However, students are able to speak English with less pressure in online classes, thereby resulting in significant differences. Based on the findings, this article elucidates the growth of online lessons, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and includes some implications about how teachers use both face-to-face and online instructional formats.