Against the backdrop of problems in Bangladeshi higher education like seat crises and session backlogs in public universities, high tuition fees in private universities, a lack of student loans, and the negative perception of online education among people including policymakers, teachers, parents, and students, it is assumed that blended learning can be an effective mode of education for Bangladesh’s universities for a number of reasons such as flexibility, enhanced learning outcomes, more teacher-student interaction, and more student satisfaction in general. So, this study was conducted to investigate the perceptions of students and teachers about both online and face-to-face education and their experiences with blended learning. The research questions of this study centered around issues like whether blended learning is appropriate as an alternative mode of education in the 21st century, what were the experiences of teachers and students with using blended learning in an English Writing Course at the undergraduate level and whether blended learning could solve the problem of space, session backlog in the public universities, reduce the cost of higher education and other problems of higher education institutions of Bangladesh. This is a qualitative, in particular, case study. The data came from interviews with 15 student participants doing the course and two teachers who conducted the course, their discussions, and postings on online forums, such as Facebook, Google Classroom, a Blog, student journals, and essay scores of 15 students. Data collected from these sources were analyzed following the qualitative data analysis method. The participants mentioned a number of advantages and disadvantages of both face-to-face and online education in Bangladesh. Most of the participants in this study opine that against the backdrop of the problems and challenges of both online and face-toface education, the blended method can be an effective alternative mode of education for the universities of Bangladesh. This method, they reported, offered them opportunities such as more flexibility, increased learning through teacher and peer feedback, scope for self-exploration, better and enhanced interaction, reduction in tuition fees and other costs of education, easing of traffic jam, expansion of women education, an increase of technological skills, and higher-order thinking. On the other hand, they mention a number of challenges of blended method such as the digital divide, the lack of teacher training and infrastructural barriers. This study can guide the policymakers, institution managers, teachers and students in Bangladeshi higher education for the implementation of the blended learning method as a way to improve the quality of higher education even in the face of infrastructural and resource constraints in the universities.

Blended education has been used worldwide for the last two decades as an alternative to full online education but not in Bangladesh. There was never any significant attempt to investigate people’s perception or experience of blended learning in Bangladesh. Therefore, this study tries to investigate the people’s experiences with this new method, a three-month-long blended course in English Writing Skill was offered at a private university in Bangladesh, where eighteen students registered for the course. After completing the course, an open-ended interview protocol was used to collect primary data from 11 students. This qualitative research is based on an interview with 11 samples and other comments posted on Google classroom and Facebook. The interview contained 8 open-ended questions to elicit their experiences with the blended learning method, a new method for them on the one hand, and both face-to-face and online education. We also investigated the 4 essay scores of these 11 respondents to check whether their performance improved due to peer and teacher feedback on those essays in the blog created and used for posting student essays. The majority of respondents have a highly positive opinion about the blended method for its positive impacts such as peer interaction and peer support, teacher feedback, as is evident from their improved scores in the successive essays, and other advantages such as learning varieties, flexibility and self-paced learning and quality of education. However, they mention a number of challenges in its implementation. It seems that blended courses will effectively reduce session backlog and cost of higher education, increase student-student and student-teacher interaction and ensure flexibility and quality of higher education in comparison with face-to-face and online education. This study is important for Bangladeshi higher education institutions because it is expected to enlighten policymakers about the importance of blended education.

In contrast to the product approach to writing, the process approach entails planning, drafting editing and revising stages. Blog an online platform for practicing process approach has long been used by EFL teachers to develop their students’ writing skill. But in Bangladeshi rural higher education context, its efficacy is yet to be investigated. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of using blogs to enhance student writing skills at tertiary level at a private university located in a rural area of Bangladesh. It focuses on the advantages of incorporating blogs as a virtual writing platform for teaching writing to a group of students used to the traditional product approach. Research participants were 98 undergraduate level students of third semester in the Department of English at a private university in Bangladesh. The research method is mixed based on primary and secondary data. Online survey was conducted on 98 participants and the test scores of 25 samples were seen through random sampling techniques. The primary numerical data were analyzed through the Google form and the secondary data were manually analyzed. We found students’ attitude to writing in blogs more positive in comparison with the traditional way of writing. Students felt writing in blogs to be more effective and motivating due to its continuous interactive feedback and correction and editing facilities. The test score also indicates gradual development of writing skill. It indicates that in spite of being a new platform to the participants, it can be effective to develop the rural students’ writing skill.

During the Covid-19, online education, the only alternative to the face-to-face education had a number of limitations and challenges such as, the negative conception about the lack of quality, non-achievement of learning outcomes, chances of unfair means in examinations, digital divide and the lack of trained teachers. So, it was assumed that blended education can be an effective alternative to the online education. But there was no research as to authenticate the efficacy of this method. This study was conducted to investigate the perceptions of students and teachers about blended learning. This is a qualitative, in particular, case study. The data came from interviews with 15 student participants and two teachers who conducted a blended course, their discussions, and postings on online forums, such as Facebook, Google Classroom, and student journals. Data collected from these sources were analyzed following the qualitative data analysis method. The majority of the participants in this study opine that the blended method is a useful substitute for traditional classroom instruction for the universities of Bangladesh. This method, they reported, offered them opportunities such as more flexibility, increased learning through teacher and peer feedback, scope for self-exploration, better and enhanced interaction, an increase of technological skills, and higher-order thinking though there are a number of challenges of blended method such as the digital divide, and the lack of teacher training. This study can be an eye-opener for stakeholders like UGC Bangladesh, university authorities to improve the quality of higher education.