Exploring the perceptions of Iranian Graduate Students about Flipped Learning: The Case of EFL Students of Applied Linguistics

Language teaching has benefitted from technology for enhancing teaching and learning quality. Although some language teachers may implement technologies in their general language classes in their classes in institutes, technology is rarely used in university classes to facilitate learning academic course procedures and deepen students' understanding of the academic content. The flipped learning model is a popular approach, which according to many scholars, is quite effective in enhancing teaching and learning languages. The current quantitative research attempted to explore the impact of flipped learning model on the TEFL graduate students' perceptions of experiencing this new model. To this end, 34 graduate students majoring in TEFL who had enrolled in a course entitled 'Materials Designing and Development' at Yazd University constituted the participants in this study. Two questionnaires were applied for data collection, including the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) questionnaire and the Perception of Flipped Learning Experience questionnaire. The findings revealed that most students were engaged in their learning procedures and enjoyed learning their academic course in a flipped classroom. They also reported that flipped learning model is applicable in academic contexts and university classes. The researchers highlight the effects of flipped learning model on teaching academic courses, the students’ perceptions of flipped learning model, and their impressions of the online platform used (i.e., Telegram). Findings showed that students found flipped learning model as an effective and enjoyable instrument for improving their academic performance and motivation. Moreover, Telegram was found to be a suitable platform for this approach.