Chapter I: introduction

In the writing lessons I can choose the topic I want to write about from the writing section of the MeLab and I can write about as many topics as I can. I do not want the teacher to give me a topic which I don’t like and waste the whole lesson writing about only one topic. (S10)

Another student stated that:

My listening grades are very low so I want to improve it. I can choose listening audios from the program according to their topics and listen to them whenever I want. I learn and practice new listening strategies as I listen. (S3)

In the student interviews, selecting materials was mentioned as an action that was liked by many of the interviewees (Interview Item 2). One of them said, for instance:

I liked to select materials according to my own needs and interest the most because the activities that the teacher gave us were similar most of the time. However, I could find various exercises for one subject on the MeLab and I could use the one I chose in the classroom. (S7)

The statements above demonstrate that the teacher did not provide students with one single activity or make the material selection for them. On the contrary, the students made the decision of selecting materials by considering their own language learning. For instance, during the observations I saw that after the teacher presented the grammar subject about ‘If clauses’, the students did activities by choosing from the MeLab program. I noticed that some of them chose writing sentences whereas

other preferred filling in the blanks. In addition, some students who finished early, continued to study other things.
The majority of the students said that they could define the place of learning, at least some of the time (Item 3). For defining the pace of learning, all of the students said that they were able to do this, at least some of the time, and most of them said they could do it often (Item 4). These responses could be linked to the fact that students can reach the MeLab program from outside of the class, and it also might be due to the fact that they can also use the program in class because they are in a blended learning setting. The students could study using the program during their lessons and after the class at their own paces and either in class or at home. A student log demonstrated that:
I can reach extra activities from my MeLab page. So that I can study even from home or it’s the weekend. I used the classroom notes of the reading lesson last week because I couldn’t go to school. It helped me to do my homework. (S5)

The same student another week wrote that:

I couldn’t understand the grammar subject today very well. So, I studied example sentences from the teacher’s notes through the page and I did extra activities during the time I was studying on my own in class. It is good that I can find notes to study again at my own speed. (S5)

In the student interviews it was also mentioned by one of the participants that (for Interview Item 2):

I liked the idea of being able to study even after the class and I could also repeat the subjects that I didn’t understand very well in the lesson through the classroom notes part of the program. (S2)
These statements reveal that students took some kind of responsibility through studying online. In addition, they didn’t restrict their learning to the classroom situation, which will also be discussed in the following item.
Using the language outside of the classroom was practiced by all of the students, at least some of the time, and the majority was able to do it often (Item 5). This might be due to the fact that the students could access their classroom materials and do extra work through the MeLab program. This can be seen from the following excerpts: