Dynamic Learning Platform for Dynamic EFL Learners: A New Journey to Navigate Effective E-Learning Program for English Education at the University Level

With the innovation of technology, the nature of learning and teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has been changed, and instead of traditional learning and teaching, e-learning has emerged as a new way to meet the demands of the ‘iGeneration’ who can easily roam around the knowledge domain just with a smartphone at anytime from anywhere. This research aims to find out the challenges of e-language learning that will help establish a more sophisticated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) by implementing the latest version of the Learning Management System (LMS). E-learning is ‘constructive learning’ or ‘self-regulated learning’ where the learners work as ‘knowledge generators’ and teachers as ‘facilitators’ and so, the learning should be accomplished in a platform that ensures interaction, communication, and collaboration. This research will be provocative of establishing such an environment where online foreign language learners and instructors can adapt easily to the new pedagogical approach to learning for successfully attaining the target learning outcomes. A survey was conducted at the department of English, Najran University (Girls’ section), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the findings show the necessity of improving teachers’ efficiency in selecting e-learning tools to design learning materials and contents of the course considering cultural context and the modern-day learners’ capacity as well as the goal. It also discusses various implications regarding the need for e-language learners’ skill development that vigorously affects the learning process. The paper finally recommends some possible steps that can be adopted by a university for the successful implementation of e-learning to widen the realm of knowledge for the learners of English as Foreign Language (EFL).


Purpose of the Study
To meet better 21st-century language learners' needs and expectations various researches have been done on different pedagogies and finally, the studies advocate for creating such a virtual learning environment (VLE) where learners can learn independently by collaboration and cooperation through high-tech social media and thus reach the satisfactory level of second language acquisition. However, there is scope for further research. More research should be done to recognize the challenges sprouted in e-learning platform associated with the radical changes in learners' and teachers' attitudes and aptitudes towards edu-tech, and thus, establish a modern e-learning platform suitable for the 'whole child' for conducting self-regulated learning (SRL) that can generate life-long learning. This study is an attempt to recognize and address the challenges of e-learning.

Significance of the Study
Time befitting education environment is the only demand of the digitally obsessed i-learners. A survey in the English department of Najran University, one of the universities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the learners are digitally savvy and have the experiences of learning in both face-to-face and online platform, help the researcher gather information and insights about the online education for the language learners. It is noteworthy that the young learners in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia whose age is between16 to 23 are adapting to new technologies faster than expected in recent years. According to the report given by Ar Riyadh Development Authority in 2007, approximately 60% of the young population here is using internet for different purposes since 1999 when internet access became available to the public, and the percentage increased rapidly day by day and in 2015, the percentage of the student internet users reached to 97.96% (CITC, 2015). So, the demand of the time is to implement e-learning for EFL learners in higher education. The Saudi government's Ministry of Higher Education has taken the initiative to shift traditional learning to e-learning by launching many development projects to establish adequate IT infrastructure as well as content development for higher education. NCEL (National Centre for E-learning) and SANEED (the Saudi Centre for Support and Counselling) have already been established and they are supporting the university online learners and the teachers with all technological and training needs (MOHE, 2011). It is remarkable that presently most of the institutions and instructors in Saudi Arabia have changed their methods of teaching and learning with technological development (Al Augub, 2007). Introducing technology in the education sector has widened the scope for the learners and the teachers to collect more information and to establish the interaction between students and students as well as students and teachers even without time and space limits in two different models-synchronous and asynchronous that are equally important for developing communication and collaboration. To keep abreast with the current trends in education in Saudi Arabia, Najran University has recently moved towards the implementation of online learning as an alternative to traditional education. Blackboard is used LMS in this university. There is a deanship supporting all online course delivery methods. Here, the students and the instructors value the LMS as an enhancement of their learning and teaching experiences but relatively few teachers and students use these systems to the full capacity till now. AL-Augub (2007) urges the researchers to do more research on online learning in Saudi Higher Education to find out the challenges faced by Saudi learners and teachers. Therefore, this study is important to know about the attitude and aptitude of Najran university students and teachers to use online courses to get the best benefit. For this, a small number of students and teachers of the English department were selected for delivering e-learning. The survey questionnaires and interviews were set to collect information about the learning environment, provided teaching materials, the efficiency level of teachers as well as students in using e-learning tools, and also learner's psychological and social development in acceptance of e-learning. The researcher believes that the findings will show both the community of practitioners and the learning community the smooth pathway to select proper educational tools, materials, and contents adjusted with cultural context.

Objectives of the Study
This research aims to establish an interactive, dynamic, virtual learning platform where the language learners can happily and comfortably lead the learning process; thus, second language acquisition will be easier, faster, and more dynamic for them. Two important things have been focused on. They are: 1) E-learning challenges in consideration of learners' and teachers' efficiency in the usage of modern educational tools 2) Application of modern tech-tools for improving engagement, interaction, and communication E-learning is becoming more and more attractive to the EFL learners and teachers but still, they are facing problems in advance use of tech-tool for education and also in effective interaction and collaboration. It is noticeable, in e-learning courses at the English department in Najran University, the second language learners and teachers showed their profound interest in e-learning but they could not attain the target learning outcomes. A survey was conducted mainly on three different aspects that are intertwined with each other for regulating successful learning process in the virtual classroom: 1) 21st-century learners' and teachers' attitudes 2) Interactions and relationships between learners and teachers 3) Students' and teachers' adaptation capability with new technologies For learning English as a second language, learners should give maximum time and effort to know the culture of the target language and the usage of it in a real-life situation. E-learning widens this scope if the learners and teachers become motivated and acquire the skills needed for governing Self-regulated Learning (SRL) successfully on e-platform. So, more and more research should be done on 21st-century learners' and teachers' attitudes and aptitudes about online education for selecting such a supportive environment that can foster dynamic qualities of the language learners in order to enable them to regulate their own learning process. It is expected the findings of this research will make a significant contribution in the field of self-regulated e-learning for the EFL learners at the university level.

Literature Review
Krashen's theory that comprehensible input is crucial for the second language acquisition and it is the interaction that can enhance second language acquisition (Krashen, 1994) is a landmark in language acquisition theory. Obviously developing a participatory culture with interaction and negotiation provides learners with comprehensible input and output. Krashen's theory works as an incentive of e-learning with the innovation of Edu-tech-tools as VLE can provide the opportunity for ample learner-learner, learner-instructor, and leaner-content interaction flexible in accessible settings than traditional classrooms and language labs. Researchers have described VLE as a platform congenial for doing multiple tasks like sharing instructional materials, making class announcements, submitting and returning course assignments and communicating with each other and all these together form individualized learning (Nambiar, Nor, Ismail, & Adam, 2017). However, continuous development of media and technology has brought a tremendous change in learners' behaviour and attitude as well as in learning pedagogy. Today's learners are active and they adhere to self-directed discovery. For this, they need an informal learning environment, self-regulation skills as well as the support of the instructors. That is why the education industry is found in a non-stop journey for navigating the perfect stimulus learning environment where the learners will have many options for expression and free movement. Different researches have been done on modern-day learners' behaviour, expectations, and goals. One of the researchers, Bill Sheskey (2010) in his book Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World describes the nature of the 21st-century learners. He says, "… students entering the classroom today are much different from those who have come before. Today's students are demanding a change in the classroom because of their ability to gather information faster than any previous generation." (p. 197) Again, Al-Shahrani and Al-Shehri (2012) use the term 'Digital Savvy' for the young learners who are tech-lovers and always crave for the latest version of mobiles, laptops, iPods, IPads etc. For these learners, Takalani (2008) advocates e-learning as it encourages them to be self-regulated and to build self-knowledge and self-confidence.
To Jasinski e-learning is "a fast transition from the conceptual to the operational". He further explores, there is no hard and fast rule for today's learning rather happily learners can learn by playing with the rules, or creating a new realm of learning conjuring with the consisting rules. Holec (1988, p. 8) uses the term 'autonomous' to describe these learners as well as the nature of learning. He says, …the autonomous learner is not automatically obliged to self-direct his learning either totally or even partially. The learner will make use of his ability to do this only if he so wishes or if he is permitted to do so by the material, social and psychological constraints to which he is subjected.
Carol Ann Tomlinson also stated, "In a less complex-less human-world, teaching might simply be telling young people what's important to know. In such a setting, students will say, 'I see. Thanks'. And the whole world goes forward." (Tomlinson, 2001) From their voices it is clear, 21st-century learners have the ability, desire and freedom; hence, the infra-structure of e-learning environment as well as the pedagogical selection works as main incentives. For this, first of all, the decision-makers should target the fundamental achievement of e-learning and this is "communication, interactivity and social cohesion" according to Brennan (2003). For attaining all these three, Intakhab (2011) hypothesizes both unidirectional and bidirectional interactions between the students and their peers and between the students and the teachers, and he considers these as successful motivating factors. It is noticeable that in present days for the advancement of technology, both synchronous and asynchronous modes of learning conducted through different websites, e-mail, e-chatting, streaming video have become convenient. In fact, interactive technologies and communication system improve learners' experience and widen their participation in lifelong learning, and it is virtual learning environment (VLE) where learners and teachers can have the equitable access to quality learning tools. Semens (2003) claims that variety is the fundamental need for quality learning, and media choices should be made targeting the desired learning outcomes.
However, research on quality e-learning has emerged recently in the 19th century and systematic research on teachers' as well as the designers' professional development in using e-learning tools, making contents, and creating e-infrastructure for bringing the learners' emotional, social, physical and academic efficiency has also developed. In fact, instructors' and students' competency in the use of e-tools for education is the requisite of E-learning (Blinco et al., 2004). For this, Salmon (2004) urges for training in order to make all the members of education industry competent enough to face the challenges in new pedagogical journey, from traditional to e-learning because technological, organizational and pedagogical challenges hinder the successful implementation of e-learning (Tarns, 2011). It is an undeniable fact that most of the universities both in developed and developing countries are facing difficulties in implementation of effective e-learning and the result is the call for blended learning (Balci & Soran, 2009). So, more research is needed to investigate the barriers of the quality education delivered in an online platform. Here Skelton's (2007) statement is noteworthy, 'no educational institution should be forced by the trends and rise of internet activities to jump on board regardless of the cost to academic quality and sense of community' (p. 147). After reviewing other researches, the researcher feels an urgency of conducting a study on the experiences of the learners and the teachers of the department of English (Girls' section) of Najran University, and the result will open the door of further research.

Participants
This research is carried out through a survey among the learners and the instructors of the English department of Najran University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A set of a structured questionnaire with open-ended questions as well as the interviews are administered to collect data from 50 students randomly selected from different levels and 30 instructors who have e-language learning and teaching experiences.

Data Collection
Three sets of questionnaires were prepared for measuring learners' motivation level in this new learning atmosphere, learners' confidence level in using technology in education, and also instructors' attitudes towards technology, pedagogy and content. A 2-point Likert Scale ranging from 'Agree' to 'Disagree' was used in this study. Some items on the questionnaire were used for obtaining qualitative and quantitative data adopted by Collin's and Virginie's E-learning in Europe (Virginie & Colin, 2006) to gather information on participants' experience and expectation on e-learning. The questionnaires are distributed with clear instruction and explanation. In addition, for the interview session, the questions were designed strategically to have the voice of the participants to collect additional information about e-learning challenges, and thus the researcher feels comfortable to collect comparable data. The adopted method makes the researcher more confident in replicating the most appropriate design of e-learning that can easily help attain the target learning outcomes, and in this respect, the researcher becomes highly motivated by Bogdan and Biklen (1998).

Data Analysis
Basic descriptive statistics seemed useful to explain the data collected from a number of learners and teachers through interview and questionnaire. Moreover, to justify the authenticity of the result of the survey various documents like university reports, strategic plans, university policies, Ministry of Education's document and relevant journal of earlier researches are analyzed by the researcher herself adjusting with her own experience. Obviously, the steps taken for establishing the authenticity of the survey result will open the door of future research for the successful implementation of e-learning in higher education.

Result and Discussion
The survey data of the study are presented in three separate sections and the analysis of the result gets the full shape with a connection of the experiences of the learners and the teachers collected by the interview session.

EFL Learners' Attitudes Towards E-Learning
This section measures and presents the data of the attitudinal changes of 21st-century language learners. It gives a clear picture of their interest in the usage of technology in learning English as well as their interest in questionnaire, many students felt online education has made the materials more understandable and less boring; whereas, they demand more "Elluminate Live Session" so they can discover their identities as a student connected with their peers under the guidance of an instructor in e-classroom though some participants complained 'technology difficulties' that sometimes made them feel isolated from others as well as unable to access the platform and videos: "Sometimes I needed to wait for learning a lesson until I went back home and opened my laptop or desktop with a high-speed internet connection. So, I passed my time with worries about missing some lectures or submitting my assignment on time." So, both synchronous and asynchronous modes are necessary to attain a satisfactory level of learning outcomes. In synchronous learning, learners get the opportunities of direct interaction with the peers and instructors as well as immediate feedback and assistance that remove their worries and tension of not getting a clear idea about the courses; the nature of the course and also the expectation of the institution. On the other hand, asynchronous mode leads the learners to self-regulated learning where learners can enter various learning kingdoms to collect information and thus attain creativity and deep understanding and learning. Autonomous language learners face cognitive and metacognitive challenges. They need to be highly skilled at time management, goal setting, self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and effort-regulation. Besides, teachers should have "psycho pedagogic knowledge" that can make them skilled at applying those strategies and techniques necessary to continue their self-directed e-language learning process in a comfortable, friendly environment; therefore, in interview session, only those teachers were appreciated who successfully could apply "motivating strategies" and thus involved them in performing best intellectual activities.
Obviously, in e-language learning, motivation is the most important thing to engage all the students in learning.
In one class, some are found very active but some very shy and have poor linguistic skills, and so can't feel comfortable in using discussion board or blogs for communication and collaboration with their fellows and instructors. For example, one student expressed her desire in the interview saying, "If blackboard had a chat option like Facebook, I would have stayed logged in and I could do my work and chat with my fellow mates as here informal language works well." Attaining linguistic skills is important for the students but language learners become proficient by using the language not just by learning about the language. In the survey result, we found the teachers unable to motivate the learners in interaction and communication through social media platform smoothly and happily. Here, it is important to know that only a digital literacy teacher can integrate real-life target language situation to enhance the motivation for the use of both formal and informal language on a different social media platform and thus can promote learners' language acquisition. According to Krashen, to learn English as a second language, learners need not give any conscious effort rather they should more and more expose themselves to the target language.
Again, about collaboration another participant said, "I feel frustrated when I work with people who are more competent than me and I become more and more aware of not being at their level." Such type of speech is really frustrating because second language learners who lack confidence and have low tech-skills retard from others. For acquiring a high level of proficiency in English, learners' engagement is essential. Clear teaching instruction methods can be helpful to attain group collaboration. Edu-tech tools provide more chances for the instructors to keep the learners engaged in multi-tasks if they are used in creative ways.
Some other students also complained against assessment style saying, "Assessment focuses only on the final product, and individual participation was not taken into account.
There are always people that take advantage of this." The voice reflects the chance of losing interest in developing a participatory culture for the limitation of collaborative assessment. To avoid this, before assigning group work, a teacher should formulate a clear assessment method where individual learners' contribution and their level of understanding will be apparent with the final achievement of the group.
Again, some expressed their dissatisfaction at knowledge sharing activities because of not having sufficient technical skills and the proper guidance of their instructors as well as timely feedback. They insisted on the continuous relationship with teachers and they requested the availability of a virtual teacher round the clock to communicate with. It is suggested, web conferencing can work best for constant monitoring of the text chat ijel.ccsenet.org International Journal of English Linguistics Vol. 10, No. 2;2020 panel so that any of the learner's questions cannot be ignored. Thus, under a vigilant teacher, the learners' engagement in group activities will create more opportunities for them to learn how to use sentences, words, grammar, and spelling correctly and appropriately.
Obviously, to solve all the problems mentioned by the learners, instructors' initiative is urgently needed. The instructors who participated in interview session valued 'chat' as an important tool to promote interaction; besides, they admitted that for the lack of time and easy-tech service, they were unable to make participatory platform 'more dynamic', 'more open schedule'. They feel, their big challenge is to increase the motivation level of the learners by giving them more time and a more interactive engaging classroom experience through the blackboard and also through social media. They also demand more and more training sessions for all the people engaged in learning, teaching, and designing the course contents.

Suggested Steps
After analyzing the present scenario of online education in the English department, Girls' section of Najran University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it becomes clear that most e-language learning challenges are related to tech-skills, time management and technology difficulties as well as the lack of effective communication and virtual collaboration and competencies. For launching effective self-regulated e-language learning program the policymaker and the course designers or instructors should be dedicated enough to design such a virtual learning platform where all the learners can happily engage themselves in different creative activities assigned as group work with full satisfaction, and they will easily develop linguistic skills through active participation in the e-learning platform.
Here are some recommendations that can be followed to overcome e-learning challenges as well as to establish a smooth, comfortable online education platform for the dynamic second language learners: 1) In today's digital climate, it's a necessity to develop a responsive e-learning course by making it multiplatform-friendly to cater for learners moving between devices like tablet, smartphone, laptop, and so on.
As mobile device usage is on the rise, advance time-befitting m-learning websites building like cloud computing AWS (Amazon Web Service) and GCS (Google Cloud Service) is an urgent need to create portable and knowledge packed mobile learning experiences for the learners.
2) For promoting e-language learning both synchronous and asynchronous delivery should be ensured so that the learners can attend the live virtual course and at the same time can complete course works offline, and thus, all of them equally can be able to be delved into a specific subject or skill set. On the one hand, synchronous mode leads the learners to conscious language learning where they get immediate feedback and practise reading and writing with error analysis. On the other hand, asynchronous mode creates more opportunities for unconscious language learning that lead the learners to know about the formulation of syntactically and semantically correct sentences.
3) Synchronous chat like Whatsapp, Facebook generates a lot of interaction but is tiring and time consuming for the teacher. To make it faster and more interesting, chat-bot or web-bot can be the perfect app to provide the right and in time replies. Only more effort should be given to make a chat-bot response human-like and to develop web-bot reply to students' enquiries and FAQs in a more vibrant and relaxed way.

4)
Asynchronous communication with discussion board, e-mail is definitely useful to answer inquiries and doubts; however, answering all emails on a daily basis is not only inefficient but also human laborious. Automated reply machine along with Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be added to give the learners an immediate solution with effective and real-life experience.

5)
In this fast-paced world of e-learning, course contents should be updated quickly to bring the adjustment with the advent of new tech education tools to make the course effective and time-befitting.
6) To engage a group of students through digital means is really a challenging task. It requires the commitment and noble contribution of the learners and the instructors. So, instructors should incorporate more activities that are more interactive and require the students to brainstorm and research a topic in both. Moreover, to get the most out of the online learning experience, they can redirect students to additional web resources.

7)
Holographic display is considered the best facilitator of collaborative learning. For this, a virtual campus can launch different projects like Scholar Project to bring 3D to 7D visualization where students can feel their physical presence and oneness among the global generation.
8) Creating different blogs, forum, discussion board and other social platforms like twitter, Whatsapp, Facebook is an urgent need for more interactions among the learners to remove instructional as well as identity construction problem.
In conclusion, in the present technology-driven society, no learning can be effective and life-long for the tech-generation without a Dynamic Learning Environment (DLE). Although most of the universities are conducting non-stop experiment on the new version of Blackboard with upgraded tools, they are not getting satisfactory result. Now it is clear, only the Blackboard without navigating other profit LMS and pedagogies cannot make the effort successful to reach the goal. So, for getting the best benefit from e-learning, more importance should be given on the comfort with the hardware and the mastery of the software program. DLE is suitable for those learners who are very smart to learn or engage with the materials and join different groups for collaboration and interaction using digital tools and resources without any hesitation. Finally, a successful e-learning project will ensure proper tools with a pedagogical and instructional model as well as skilled instructors with great commitment to building a knowledge society with dynamic learners. Most importantly, learners are one of the most important stake-holders in an e-learning project and so, designing and developing an e-language course with them in mind can lead the project to the target.
The voice is here to add a new version of e-tech apps and software and also skill development project to make self-regulated e-learning more interesting and comfortable to the digital EFL learners and the teachers. Obviously, further research will explore in-depth knowledge of implementation of the ideas mentioned in this paper and thus will open a smooth path for the education industry to make this tech-oriented language learning successful for the tech-savvy learners. McLuhan declares the same message "We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us" (McLuhan, 1995, p. ix) Declaration I declare that this research article is my own and has been generated by me as the result of my own experience of teaching in both face-to-face and e-platform and also of the survey conducted with questionnaires and interviews among the undergraduate students of different levels and the teachers who share their experiences and provide their valuable suggestions. The data that support the findings of this study are accurate and available on request from the author. I would also like to confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest associated with this publication and there has been no significant financial support for this work that could have influenced its outcome.
I am always active in sending and receiving e-mails for regular contact with my peers and teachers.

Appendix B
Questionnaire designed to know about the EFL teachers' e-learning experiences.