An overview of strategies for promoting student engagement in online english courses

59Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion
AN OVERVIEW OF STRATEGIES FOR PROMOTING STU-
DENT ENGAGEMENT IN ONLINE ENGLISH COURSES 
Pham Dieu Ly, Nguyen Thi Thao* 
Date received the article: 3/4/2020
Date received the review results: 5/10/2020
Date published the article: 27/10/2020
Abstract: The authors in this study learnt about online education and student engage-
ment in order to fi nd out fi ve eff ective strategies for promoting student engagement in our 
online English courses. Online education is defi ned as any educational undertaking that pri-
marily utilizes the internet to deliver coursework, assessments and assignments from teacher 
to student. (Ashley, 2019). Whereas, student engagement contains three components: behav-
ioral engagement, emotional engagement and cognitive engagement (Fredricks et al, 2004). 
These three components are interrelated within individuals, so infl uenced by three psycho-
logical needs: autonomy, relatedness and competence (Hew (2014). In online courses, the 
following fi ve factors could engage students: (1) problem-oriented learning with clear and 
comprehensive instructions, (2) instructor accessibility, (3) peer interaction, (4) active learn-
ing, and (5) course resources to address participant learning needs since they are infl uential 
to individual’s selfness. The authors suggested the strategies based on these factors to im-
prove student engagement in online English courses. 
Keywords: online education, student engagement, strategies, promoting, English courses, 
components, psychological needs
* Faculty of Tourism - Hanoi Open University 
1. Introduction
The rise of the internet and the easy 
access that most students have to com-
puters, smartphones, and Wi-Fi networks 
have powerfully infl uenced education. 
Consequently, online education has been 
considered a key aspect of curriculum in 
many schools. However, for many peo-
ple, the expression “online education” 
is suspicious; both teachers and students 
are reluctant to get involved in any on-
line courses. There has been a continuous 
debate on the topic of online learning vs. 
traditional learning. Such debate emerged 
when online courses were the best option 
during Covid-19 coronavirus epidemic. 
Our authentic experiences, delivering our 
online English courses and our students’ 
participation in such courses brought out 
the insights into the reluctance arosen. 
The biggest concern is related to the low 
student engagement which might aff ect 
the quality of education. The situation of 
Tạp chí Khoa học - Trường Đại học Mở Hà Nội 72 (10/2020) 59-66
60 Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion
‘no other choice’ motivated the authors 
to seek for eff ective strategies to promote 
student engagement. Working through the 
past studies, we came across the reliable 
theoretical background about online ed-
ucation and student engagement which 
helped us give out the solution to our 
problems. Although there has been any 
thorough research on the eff ectiveness of 
such strategies, positive feedback from 
our students could be a reliable proof. 
2. Online education
In the last 20 years, the Internet has 
grown from being nearly non-existent into 
the largest, most accessible database of in-
formation ever created. It has changed the 
way people communicate, shop, socialise, 
do business and think about knowledge 
and learning. Much more than just a new 
twist on distance learning, online school-
ing is changing the face of traditional 
classrooms and making education more 
accessible than ever before. 
What is online education? Online 
education is a form of education where 
students use their home computers through 
the internet. Often online graduation and 
course programmes, some of which are 
conducted using digital technologies, are 
provided via the online learning portal of 
the host university.
Computer-based training, Web-
based training, Internet based training, 
online training, e-learning (electronic 
learning), m-learning (mobile learning), 
computer-aided distance education - on-
line education goes by many names and 
comes in a variety of styles. Today, the 
term “online education” can be under-
stood as any educational undertaking 
that primarily utilizes the internet to 
deliver coursework, assessments and as-
signments from teacher to student (Ash-
ley, 2019). 
From this simple definition comes 
an almost infinite number of ways to teach 
and learn outside of traditional classrooms 
and away from college campuses. It can 
include audio, video, text, animations, vir-
tual training environments and live chats 
with teachers. It is a rich learning envi-
ronment with much more flexibility than 
a traditional classroom.
When used to its full potential, on-
line education has been shown to be eff ec-
tive in comparison with pure face-to-face 
instruction. It can be engaging, fun and 
tailored to fit students’ needs. 
3. Student engagement 
Student engagement is considered 
by many educators to be an important as-
pect of a teaching and learning context 
because it can infl uence students’ reten-
tion, learning, achievement test scores 
and graduation (Appleton, Christenson 
& Furlong, 2008; Fredricks, Blumen-
feld & Paris, 2004). Being an abstract 
construct, student engagement has been 
defi ned in various ways. Despite the dif-
ferent defi nitions, scholars have largely 
identifi ed student engagement as a con-
struct that contains three components: 
behavioral engagement, emotional en-
gagement and cognitive engagement 
(Fredricks et al, 2004).
Behavioral or physical engagement 
involves the idea of participation in an 
activity and includes the student complet-
ing an assignment, or attending classes. 
Emotional engagement refers to students’ 
61Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion
aff ective responses or feeling towards 
teachers, peers, the course and learning, 
whereas cognitive engagement refers to 
the task-specifi c thinking that a student 
employs while undertaking in an activity 
(Helme & Clarke, 1998). It is important to 
note that in reality these three components 
are dynamically interrelated within the in-
dividual; they are not isolated processes 
(Fredricks et al, 2004).
4. Individuals’ psychological needs
Hew (2014) presented a possible 
model of how the three psychological 
needs might infl uence the three aspects of 
engagement.
Figure 1. How psychological needs infl uence aspects of engagement Hew (2014) 
Autonomy refers to the need for 
freedom or perceived choice over one’s 
action. The need for autonomy provides a 
motivational basis for students’ behavior-
al engagement because an individual can 
choose to participate or not to participate 
in an activity (Skinner, Furrer, Marchand 
& Kindermann, 2008). Individuals need 
to feel that they are acting from their own 
volition and voluntarily participating in 
an activity, instead of being forced into 
doing something. However, the notion of 
autonomy does not imply that guidance 
from an authority is not needed at all. 
For some individuals, having autonomy 
over their own learning may prove to be 
a bane as they may not know how to pro-
ceed in learning a subject matter. It may 
be the case that learner autonomy is best 
achieved when, among other things, the 
teacher acts as a counsellor or a resource 
(Thanasoulas, 2000). Autonomy also pro-
vides a motivational basis for emotional 
engagement because it is reasonable to as-
sume that the sense of psychological free-
dom over course activities would likely to 
engender positive student feelings towards 
the course itself (Skinner et al, 2008).
Relatedness refers to the need for 
an individual to connect with other people 
such as with their peers and the instruc-
tor. It can predict students’ levels of emo-
tional engagement. Frequent interactions 
62 Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion
between students and students or between 
students and the instructor could lead to 
more positive feelings (ie, stronger emo-
tional engagement) towards the course 
and learning. The level of interactions can 
be infl uenced by the degree of familiari-
ty students have with one another or with 
the instructor (Cheung, Hew & Ng, 2008). 
Students tend to interact more with oth-
er people they are familiar with. This de-
gree of familiarity may be compromised 
in courses with large student numbers 
because it is harder to get to know other 
people more intimately in the class. Con-
sequently, this could lead to fewer student 
interactions and eventually weaker emo-
tional engagement towards the course.
Competence refers to the need for a 
person to master one’s pursuits or learn-
ing (Helme & Clarke, 1998); hence it may 
be considered to be a critical motivation 
factor for students’ cognitive engagement. 
Competence also provides a motivational 
basis for behavioral and aff ective engage-
ment because it is reasonable to assume 
that a sense of mastery about the topic be-
ing studied would encourage a learner to 
further participate in the course activities, 
as well as foster positive learner feelings 
about the course.
5. Infl uential factors on student 
engagement in online courses
Previous research that examined on-
line courses has suggested several factors 
that could infl uence student engagement. 
These factors include course resourc-
es (Sull, 2012) instructor accessibility 
and passion (Das, 2012), peer interaction 
(Sull, 2012), active learning (Harrington 
& Floyd, 2012) and problem-oriented 
with clear expositions (Kelly, 2012). 
Figure 2. Factors that infl uence student engagement (Hew, 2014) 
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The course resources also play a ma-
jor role in fostering student engagement in 
online courses. The instructors employed 
a wide variety of resources and activities 
such as video lectures, online discussion 
forums and/or chats, quizzes, weekly 
tasks, course readings and links to other 
valuable materials to help engage students 
and maximize their learning. According to 
Bangert (2004), using an array of relevant 
resources and activities is one approach to 
address the diverse range of learning pref-
erences and skills that participants may 
bring to the learning environment.
Instructor accessibility may be de-
fi ned as the extent an instructor is willing 
to interact with course participants. The 
lack of instructor accessibility is probably 
one of the greatest criticisms of large-scale 
education (Warren, Rixner, Greiner & 
Wong, 2014). A high degree of instructor 
accessibility is likely to increase the likeli-
hood of student engagement. On the other 
hand, a low degree of instructor accessibil-
ity could cause students to feel that no one 
is addressing their questions. Moreover, 
one of the most frequently mentioned 
traits of instructors who can motivate their 
students are passionate ones. Specifi cally, 
these instructors exhibited a genuine love 
for subject matters and interest in teaching 
the students.
Peer interactions could encour-
age knowledge sharing and construction 
among participants. Probably the most 
common social component of online 
courses is the discussion forums (War-
ren et al, 2014). 
Engagement is promoted when ac-
tive learning is emphasized and support-
ed. Bonwell and Eison (1991) defi ne ac-
tive learning as any task or activity that 
involves students in doing things and 
thinking about the things they are doing. 
Problem-oriented with clear exposi-
tions is another important factor. The defi -
nition of problem diff ers among various 
scholars. Following Merrill (2002), we 
use the term problem to refer to a range 
of activities, with the most critical charac-
teristic being that the activity is represen-
tative of what a learner might encounter 
in the world. A problem-oriented instruc-
tion is therefore concerned about teaching 
learners the necessary concepts or skills 
in order to understand or solve some real-
world tasks.
6. Strategies for promoting stu-
dent engagement in online English 
courses
Based on the theoretical background 
about online education, student engage-
ment, individuals’ psychological needs, 
infl uential factors on student engagement 
in online courses and their relation, the 
authors worked together to detail what 
should be done in our on English courses. 
The following specifi c strategies are well 
presented: (1) course resources to address 
participant learning needs, (2) instructor 
accessibility, (3) peer interaction, (4) ac-
tive learning, and (5) problem-oriented 
learning with clear and comprehensive in-
structions. The specifi c strategies that can 
be used for each factor are described as 
follows: 
(1) Course resources to address 
participant learning needs
We provided clear course informa-
tion particularly course objectives, course 
duration, assignment instructions, dead-
lines, and estimated workload (ie, hours 
per lesson) so that students knew exactly 
what they were supposed to do, and how 
much eff ort was expected of them.
64 Nghiên cứu trao đổi ● Research-Exchange of opinion
In addition, online video lectures 
could be slowed down or speeded up to 
suit students’ listening preference while 
availability of slides was essential for vid-
eo lectures to allow students to review the 
materials.
We tried our best to give out a rich 
resource of relevant course information, 
including suggestions for further readings, 
optional videos or self-study worksheets.
(2) Instructor accessibility and 
passion
We provided a dedicated class ser-
vice that allowed our students to contact 
us for support as soon as possible. In or-
der to avoid being overloaded, we asked 
the leader of each class to select frequent 
questions and spent a specifi c amount of 
time in each online session directly ad-
dressing students’ questions. It was about 
15 minutes or up to 30 minutes. 
Beside that we saved the contact of 
technical support staff and shared it with 
our students. As a result, we could avoid 
any bad impact on the delivery due to 
technical problems which may seriously 
aff ect students’ engagement. 
Furthermore, being aware of the 
importance of the teacher’s passion, we 
worked at a high level of enthusiasm. 
Luckily, we both shared our great passion 
for tourism and earned a lot of travel expe-
riences, so we not only delivered the les-
sons but also raised the students’ love for 
the industry. As a result, many students 
were engaged by the excitement that we 
had about the subject as well as our enthu-
siasm in teaching it.
(3) Peer interaction
We employed panel-style discus-
sions that were spontaneous and not re-
hearsed in google meet rooms, helping 
our students feel like they were in the 
class participating in the dialogue.
We provided our students the op-
portunity in dedicated sub-forums to fol-
low-up or seek clarifi cation from peers re-
garding the review comments received. At 
this step, the application of ‘padlet’ was 
of great help. For example, in one lesson 
of PET 4, all students posted their ideas 
of qualities of good hoteliers on a padlet 
(using the link shared by the teacher). Af-
ter that, we gave them a specifi c period 
of time (5-10 minutes) to respond to their 
classmates’ ideas. Surprisingly, they were 
quite excited; which was concluded based 
on the feedback selected at the end of the 
lesson.
(4) Active learning
We used weekly mini-tasks that 
required students to apply the concepts 
taught. The assignments were carefully 
calibrated to be challenging but not impos-
sible by: (1) ensuring that everything that 
was needed to complete them was covered 
in the lesson, (2) providing a walk-through 
of the strategy required to complete the task 
(guidelines), and (3) providing a template 
that contained a general outline of the task. 
For example, based on our instructions 
and sample application letters, the students 
wrote an application letter after searching 
for a job advertisement and completing a 
resúme. After that we used a required self-
assessment activity as part of a student’s 
mini-task submission. With the aid of a 
grading rubric associated with the particu-
lar work, the students would fi rst evaluate 
their course mates’ task before self-evaluat-
ing their own work. The purpose of self-as-
sessment is for students to judge the quality 
of their own work after they had seen and 
graded their peers’ work.
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Another strategy is that we could 
play a video which was followed by ques-
tions for students’ refl ections; in many les-
sons, a good video both sustained student 
attention and contributed to the achieve-
ment of learning objectives. 
We also used LMS quizzes that test-
ed the relevant concepts taught in a partic-
ular week to provide immediate feedback 
to students on their performance. Quizzes 
contained a mixture of questions that as-
sessed the following types of cognitive pro-
cesses: understanding, analyzing, applying 
and evaluating. What is worth noting is the 
purpose of these quizzes, which was to help 
students review the course content via one 
or more of the following strategies: (1) the 
quizzes reviewed or reinforced the main 
points covered in the lectures, (2) the quiz-
zes gave clear answer explanations, and (3) 
the quizzes allowed multiple retakes of the 
questions.
(5) Problem‐oriented with clear ex-
position
Throughout our lessons, we con-
centrated on something functional in the 
real world. It was incredibly eff ective for 
tourism-related English lessons. When we 
taught the students in PET4, we made a sit-
uation in which a customer with a special 
interest is looking for a good tourism prod-
uct. Our students had to design a Nich tour-
ism product to satisfy the customer. Our 
students were really involved, then during 
the task, they also reinforced their acquisi-
tion of Nich tourism.
However, teachers have to take note 
of the fact that the situation should be 
conducted step by step. Therefore, step-
by-step instruction, providing examples, 
is requested for students’ better compre-
hension and task completion. 
7. Conclusion
This article shared the strategies 
we applied into our English course in the 
second semester of the school year 2019-
2020 to promote student engagement in 
fully online courses. The provision of 
course resources would give students a 
clear idea of what they are actually sup-
posed to do in the course. The availabil-
ity of extra course resources also allows 
students who are interested in a topic to 
explore it further. These cater to a stu-
dent’s need for autonomy. Furthermore, 
the use of various online resources and 
activities also helped students achieve a 
sense of mastery of the topics covered. 
This caters to a student’s need for com-
petence. In addition, instructor accessibil-
ity and peer interactions would foster the 
sense of relatedness which in turn aff ects 
students’ aff ective engagement. Instructor 
and peer interactions could increase stu-
dents’ positive feelings towards a course 
and help them stay engaged. Furthermore, 
an instructor’s enthusiasm in teaching the 
course, as well as his/her willingness to 
interact with students (eg, answer student 
questions) also plays an important role in 
meeting students’ need for competency. 
The use of active learning strategies and 
problem-oriented learning with clear ex-
positions that focus on making meaning-
ful connections to the real world