CHALLENGES AND BENEFITS OF THE FLIPPED LEARNING MODEL: The Case of Turkish EFL Learners

Following the developments in communication and technologies, a great transformation has been experienced in many fields including foreing language education. This fundamental change also requires language classes to be designed in a way to help learners become more active, autonomous, and creative. In this regard, flipped learning has been drawing the attention of most researchers since the 2000s as a student-centered approach. The purpose of this study is to explore a group of EFL learners’ experience regarding flipped classes by focusing on their commentary about the positive and negative aspects of flipped learning. 26 EFL students participated in this study and they were asked two open-ended questions to share their experience regarding flipped learning practice. The findings indicate that the most frequently stated challenges can be grouped under five themes: lack of motivation, internet access, technology use, workload, interaction, and lack of student responsibility. The benefits can be categorized under two: time management and convenience.