Challenges Faced by Distance Learners to Learn the English Language at The School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia

This paper reports the challenges faced by adult distance learners to learn English at the School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia. A total of 512 distance learners from the JUE 300 English II course completed the survey questionnaire. The findings show that students reported a lack of training for communication skills using the English language, insufficient hours of lectures and face-to-face interactions, a time consuming Intensive course and issues with downloading from the e-portal as the main factors making it difficult for the distance learners to learn English. Based on these findings, the authors recommend that designers and instructors of distance language learning courses become familiar with theories of distance learning and second language acquisition. To ensure the quality of the course, course designers and instructors should plan the course well in terms of using comprehensible texts and audio-visual materials, ensuring an appropriate level of difficulty, and implementing quality methods, interactions and assessments using an approach that is appropriate and conducive to the situational context of distance learners so they find the course engaging, relevant and meaningful. Distance learning is flexible in terms of time and location, but students may experience reduced levels of face-to-face interaction. Technological advancements and support from well-trained and committed technicians can enable the instructors to provide appropriate content and offer increased interactive sessions via teleconferencing with the distance learners.