A SWOT analysis of e - TEFL in Iran: University of Guilan

Growing interest in learning English for variety of reasons has persuaded educational institutions to consider e-learning as an alternative means to reach and access learners who are not able to attend conventional schools. In developed countries (e.g.: The United States), application of e - learning is already changing teaching and learning processes (Punie et al., 2006). Nearly 75% of the top 129 US universities use e - learning systems (Wang & Wang, 2009). In developing countries too, e-learning has been recognized as an opportunity to access the global realm of education. Although attempts have been made to improve the quality of e-learning in Iran, there is still a long way ahead to improve the virtual education level in some disciplines, such as: Virtual Teaching English as a Foreign Language (called e-TEFL hereafter). However, it is strongly believed that in order to be competitive in addressing the needs, and meet ing the demands, institutions should be frequently informed about their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. One tool which makes this easy for every institution is SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, opportunities, Threats) analysis. SWOT helps managers identify and prioritize the gaps of the current curriculum against the stakeholders vision, strategy, and objectives. This study applies SWOT analysis to the e-TEFL program offered by the University of Guilan to illustrate the possibilities of this technique for educational strategic planning. To introduce the vision, strategy, and objectives, the first step was to identify the parameters in the existing well-recognized national and international documents to set a comparative agenda for virtual courses in higher education. Then, in order to have a cogent comparison, a number of parameters were defined as success factors. Considering the above parameters and according to the standards of online education, a questionnaire was prepared to obtain the required data on the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of the e-TEFL program. The SWOT questionnaire was administered to 50 students who were doing their MA in TEFL and 15 experts who were teaching both virtual and conventional courses at the University of Guilan . The results of the study, based on the present situation, the projected vision, and the statistical analysis of the responses to the questionnaire led to ten major statements for each part of the SWOT . Statistical analyses revealed that although e-TEFL has a certain degree of achievement in the University of Guilan , there are still a number of significant areas in need of improvement. In particular, the scores of external and internal factors (2.32 and 2.74 respectively) indicated that the strategies employed so far have only been partially effective in exploiting opportunities or defending against threats. Suggestions are made on how strategies may be improved to take better advantage of the opportunities. The study implies that the information obtained through SWOT analysis is valuable for the e-TEFL curriculum designers who constantly seek ways to overcome weaknesses and minimize threats.

Keywords:

E -learning , SWOT Analysis , e-TEFL