The transition of online into limited English learning- teaching in the rural area context

Article history: Received: Dec 20, 2021 Revised: Jan 09, 2022 Accepted: Jan 17, 2022 The Covid-19 pandemic has started to decrease, thus many schools in Indonesia have switched their learning activity from online to limited offline learning teaching. This new learning policy from the government might lead to the betterment or instead create new learning issues. Reflected from the online learning implementation, rural students suffer more compared to urban students. Therefore, this study aimed at exploring rural students’ perceptions towards the transition of online into offline limited learning teaching. A survey study carried out in the state junior high school 3 Purbatua, North Sumatra, involving 49 students from level 7 to 9 grades. The students were provided with a close-ended questionnaire investigating their perceptions in terms of course content coverage, learning effectiveness, and learning interaction. This turned out that most students were less satisfied with the conductivity of limited offline teaching. Students’ satisfaction in the limited offline teaching needs to be considered to have an effective teaching and learning atmosphere. This might be beneficial both to the government and teachers as a reflection to maintain a more appropriate limited offline teaching. The learning and teaching barriers in turn might serve as a reflection for teachers to design more effective teaching activities.

Dilemmas will always occur in the teaching contexts mainly during the transition from online learning into a limited face-to-face meeting. In the context of fully conducted online learning, the situation causes a struggle for teachers and practitioners to find the best learning system due to its sudden changes. Currently, teachers need to undergo a new teaching atmosphere with a short-limited time. All schools in Indonesia must implement specific learning and teaching activities to avoid the spread of viruses based on the Joint Decision Letter of four ministries and the Ministry of Home Affairs Number 14 of 2021. Of course, by this new policy, the government expects to provide an alternative after online learning brought barriers for teachers and students.
At first, online learning brought a learning transition that is significantly challenging for teachers and students since they have to adapt to the learning teaching transition from direct to online. Referring to UNESCO's statement, Education systems worldwide have faced an unprecedented challenge since the spread of COVID-19. Octaberlina et al., (2020) confirmed that all the schools in Indonesia changed their English teaching methods from DET (Direct English Teaching) to the virtual one. Moreover, Endriyati et al., (2019) affirmed the different English teaching challenges faced by teachers who live in urban and rural areas in Indonesia. Almahasees et al., (2021) affirmed that the students have a chance to adapt to the new changes since they get guidance from the institutions. The students were pursued to interact using online platforms with teachers. However, it did not always run as expected. Some previous studies have observed the rural teachers' challenges across different areas such as in (Hossain, 2016). He confirmed that the English language achievement of teachers in rural areas was relatively poor compared to urban areas. The low performance was due to the lack of trained teachers, lack of good deals content, and ineffective course. It was asserted that teachers and students in rural areas suffer more than urban areas. Most teachers in rural areas were not familiar with technology, had mastery problems with teaching methods, and were less trained (Endriyati et al., 2019).
Besides, the challenges also go to the rural students, such as low mastery of vocabulary issues, less motivation, less participation, less parents' support, and less discipline. It was added that the barriers refer to the students' competence, mindset, and language (Febriana et al., 2018). More importantly, rural students encountered internet connection issues (Ariyanti, 2020). The rural area's students faced limited online learning accessibility, such as being thrown out from online learning platforms, and limited learning sources access. In the bottom line, students might not reach the appropriateness of online learning. Meanwhile, the government and practitioners' ideal concept of online learning is accessible for different circumstances.
Despite its challenges, online learning provides two opportunities for both teachers and students. Dhawan (2020) affirmed that students get advantages during online learning since it offers flexibility, accessibility, and affordability of learning policies. Moreover, it provides students to learn at their own pace and at anytime and anywhere. He added that online learning is accessible and potentially reaches urban and some rural areas where they get equal opportunities with different conditions of online learning. The conditions refer to IT support, human resources, and learning atmospheres.
Other conditions in online learning to facilitate students' needs in learning consist of technical conditions, teachers' technical skills, teaching styles, and students' involvement in learning (Coman et al., 2020). Furthermore, mastery of teaching becomes a necessary condition toward online learning (Endriyati et al., 2019). Teachers are expected to implement various teaching methods and techniques to present adequate online teaching. Thus, it is essential to engage students during the learning process by providing content development beyond the curriculum needs (Kebritchi et al., 2017).
However, nowadays online learning has started to end since the COVID-19 crisis has started to subside. Many schools in Indonesia, particularly in rural areas, have already started limited offline teaching, yet it leads to new challenges. Teachers need to consider the way to succeed in limited offline learning-teaching; one way is to ensure students' comprehension in a pressed time. On the other hand, within the given time, teachers are also responsible for transferring knowledge within enhancing the students' communication, collaboration, and creativity, developing students' learning experience, and focusing on the process and the practices of learning (Kim et al., 2019). In addition, the teachers should encourage students' thinking and interaction, lead discussions, and provide practices and feedback for students (Mart, 2011). He added that students' self-learning and motivation are vital to succeed in limited offline teaching-learning.
At the same time, the rural teachers' quality is less adequate to fulfill the students' needs in the limited offline learning. It was evidenced that the English teacher in SMPN 3 Purbatua encountered issues related to limited offline learning teaching in term of course content delivery and students' learning motivation. The limited offline learning teaching condition was totally different as it was felt by the students in SMPN 3 Purbatua. They already felt comfortable with online learning since they have experienced it for almost two years. The students were less motivated and engaged because they were compelled to suit the new learning condition again. Thus, it is urgent for teachers to design the course content, students' activity, and students' tasks with the limited time to obtain the same learning opportunities they had in full offline learning. The teacher might introduce students to the course syllabus, list of assignments, learning timeline on the beginning of the class according to , as those will help students to prepare their readiness, learning style, and motivation during the limited offline teaching-learning.
It was evidenced that in-person offline learning increases students' motivation, builds the social relationship among students, and improves students' encouragement during the learning activity. This will help the teacher to design the appropriate teaching methodology (Kemp & Grieve, 2014). In addition, offline learning provides advantages, such as, real time interaction, providing real feedback for students in the classroom, and students' involvement (Paul & Jefferson, 2019). Through the existence of learning conditions, students might consider that offline learning-teaching is meaningful compared to online learning.
Furthermore, it is also essential for teachers to provide students' selflearning which helps them explore information, revise tasks, and discuss tasks. This way can also help students to fulfill the learning competencies. On the other hand, Sieberer-Nagler (2015) proposed to ensure an adequate classroom atmosphere which refers to the students' involvement, attention, and understanding during the class. The successful learning teaching activity is not merely based on teachers but also students. Therefore, this current study is urged to hear the students' voices toward the conductivity of offline limited learning-teaching. The students' perceptions will be an input for the teachers to improve their teaching quality and also the students' satisfaction towards the offline limited learning-teaching (Mahendra, 2020).
Perception refers to individuals' voice, sense, behavior, and experience towards a particular issue. It results from an experience process that leads to interpretation (Taman et al., 2021). Thus, perception in this study is used to understand individuals' experiences towards limited offline learning teaching since every individual has a different sense and view. Furthermore, students' perceptions of limited offline learning-teaching indicate their reactions after getting involved in the limited classroom. Therefore, the appropriateness of offline limited learning teaching can be evaluated through perceptions.
The researchers perceive that limited offline learning teaching will lead to new issues for students. Therefore, it is urgently needed to investigate a further perception about this new learning situation. The perceptions later can be a suggestion for the betterment of teaching that can evaluate both government and practitioners. The perceptions are narrowed into four aspects: course content coverage (1), learning-teaching effectiveness (2), students' engagement (3), and students' interaction (4). The researchers think these four aspects are crucial to be investigated because having one aspect is insufficient.
Considering the background of the study, the formulated research question is "What are the students' perceptions towards the limited offline English learning-teaching?" Investigating students' perceptions related to a particular issue will depend on varied situations such as the students' conditions, school conditions, learning teaching conditions, and geographic conditions. Therefore, in this present study, the problem was limited as follows; the perception only regards to junior high school students in rural areas, specifically in SMPN 3 Purbatua. Besides, the perception was only related to learning teaching of English in the school.

METHOD
This study was survey research aiming at exploring the students' perceptions of limited offline learning-teaching. A survey is a research method to describe opinions, behaviors, perceptions, preferences, and attitudes of individuals who are taken from a large or small population (Latief, 2019). In this study, the survey research was carried out at a small school level and was conducted by the researchers themselves. The respondents of this study were three classes of different levels (grade 7, grade 8, and grade 9) at SMPN 3 Purbatua, North Tapanuli Regency. The total students consist of 49 students; grade 7 consists of 15 students; grade 8 consists of 16 students; grade 9 consists of 18 students. The school, SMPN 3Purbatua, was selected as the rural school because it is located out of the town and lacks of educational amenities.

Instruments
The instrument of this study was a paper-based questionnaire (appendix 1). The questions were designed in a closed-ended version. The questionnaire consisted of 11 questions. The questions were divided into course content coverage and learning-teaching effectiveness, students' engagement, and students' satisfaction in the limited offline learning-teaching situation. The questions employed a Likert scale. The scales consisted of 4 scales from strongly agree to strongly disagree; 4 for "strongly agree," 3 for "agree," 2 for "disagree," and 1 for "strongly disagree," which was adapted from (Afrilyasanti et al., 2017). Colman et al., (1997) confirmed that the "odd number" is used to avoid neutral answers from the respondents. In addition, the blueprint of the questions was also designed into a table 1.  Table 1 shows the description of the questionnaires. It consisted of 4 aspects followed by the variables within it. The blueprint was used as a guidance to develop the questionnaire.

Data analysis procedures
The data collection was collected through questionnaires that were directly distributed to the students in the school. This technique was applied to this present study because it ensured students' understanding to fill the printed questionnaires and was feasible for the researchers to access the school's location.
In this study, there were two techniques in analyzing the data. The first technique was identifying the sheets one by one and classifying the answers based on the scales. After that, the data was analyzed by using statistical techniques. This step aimed at finding the average score (Means), the middle point score distribution (Median), the most dominant point (Modes), the average score of the Mean (Standard Deviation), and the final proportion of the group in the population (Percentage).

FINDINGS
This survey study investigated the students' perceptions of offline limited learning-teaching in SMPN 3 Purbatua. This section is intended to present the study results according to the research question. The distribution of the students' levels is distributed in Table 2.  Table 2 shows that most of the students who responded in this study were grade 9 as 18 people (36.7%), and the remaining students were grade 7 and 8 with a total of 31 people. Then, the results of the questionnaire are shown in table 3. The result of the survey is shown in table 3. Overall, the rural students from SMPN3 Purbatua agreed that they enjoyed the limited offline learningteaching. Starting from the English course content, most students (63.26%) asserted that the English materials were well delivered and covered. Meanwhile, some of the students had opposing views on the course-content coverage and delivery, with a percentage of disagreement (31.6%). Considering the learning effectiveness, 57.14% of students claimed that limited offline teaching was effective as a full teaching class, whereas 28.57% of students admitted the less effective limited learning-teaching. Likewise, the students (20.4%) absolutely agree with the limited offline learning compared to online learning, and only a few (10.2%) had contrastive opinions. Even if the students (50.10%) felt the teacher hurried the learning materials, all were understandable (53.06%).
As claimed by 63.26% of students, they actively participated during the limited situation, and only 24.48% of students were not interactive in the classroom. They (42.85 %) considered learning interaction in a limited offline meeting more fun than online learning. Moreover, the atmosphere of limited teaching was convenient, but it was only claimed by fewer respondents (36.73%). In contrast, the students (48.97%) admitted that they were inconvenient and not excited with the limited offline teaching. Relating to the students' satisfactions, most students confirmed that they were satisfied with the teaching course contents and the learning interactions in the limited offline learning teaching, 40.81 % and 53.06%, respectively. However, it was undeniable that the rest of the students were not pleased with the teaching course contents and the learning interactions within the limited offline learning-teaching.

DISCUSSION
Based on the research findings, it was found that the English teachers covered and delivered the learning materials quite well. Paul & Jefferson (2019) affirmed that offline learning encourages students to respond to the teachers' explanation, to find for clarification of the learning materials, and to make inquiries for the materials that have not been understood.  highlighted that the presence of teacher affects the students' understanding toward course preparation and course understanding. The content delivery aspect became a reflection for teachers to appropriately apply the teaching method during the offline class. The students' condition during offline class is also a consideration in designing the suitable learning materials. More importantly, the learning instructions were clearly explained to the students. As a result, the clear instructions minimized the misconception and misunderstanding of the learning materials (Paul & Jefferson, 2019).
Regarding learning effectiveness, Setyawan et al., (2020) argued that offline learning achieved more effectiveness than online learning. Likewise, it was proved by the present study that most students in rural areas declared the effectiveness of limited teaching rather than online teaching. The effectiveness was achieved through the students' interaction during the offline class. It was proven by Kemp & Grieve (2014) that the offline learning teaching triggered students' motivation, students' relationship between teachers and other students, and enhanced students' involvement during the learning teaching. In addition, offline learning provides advantages, such as, real time interaction, providing real feedback for students in the classroom, and students' involvement (Paul & Jefferson, 2019).
Pertinent to the students' interaction, this study revealed good interaction between students and teachers during limited offline learningteaching. Usually, students and teachers have direct interaction during offline learning. They can discuss, exchange, and share ideas without barriers (Taman et al., 2021). Besides, offline learning eager to decrease students' laziness and loneliness while learning (Sim et al., 2020). However, offline learning does not always guarantee a more comfortable situation, because the teacher is the one who demonstrates the class to be active. All things considered; it was assumed that offline learning provides students with a more engaged atmosphere in the classroom. Students are freer to interact with teachers and students without any limitation.
In general, most rural students from SMPN 3 Purbatua perceived some positive views about limited offline learning teaching in terms of course content, learning effectiveness, students' interaction, and students' satisfaction. These findings were supported by previous studies (Martin & Bolliger, 2018;P. Singh et al., 2021). In relation to the students' interaction, the offline learning teaching incorporates genuine engagement between teacher and students, in which fostering the feeling of social interactions during class activities (Martin & Bolliger, 2018). It was assumed that offline learning increases the students' interaction with their classmates because they can directly communicate what they have progressed in learning to their peers and teachers.
Considering the students' satisfaction in offline learning, a study conducted by P.  revealed that students were more focused and did not feel bored in offline learning compared to online learning. A part from this, they also witnessed the effectiveness of content delivery in offline learning, since it was directly conducted and guided by the teachers. Furthermore, another study conducted by Damayanti & Rachmah (2020) confirmed the effectiveness of offline learning. The students thought that offline learning was effective to them that the effectiveness refer to students' understanding, students' interaction with teachers, students' attendance, students' concentration.
Based on the discussed previous studies, the researchers believed that offline limited learning teaching promotes a better learning atmosphere in terms of; content coverage, learning effectiveness, classroom interactions, and students' satisfaction. The existence of offline limited learning teaching removes the learning barriers that students experienced online. The students are less worried about internet connections, course understanding, learning anxiety, and adaptation of learning style, therefore, the learning outcomes can be better achieved. In the bottom line, the positive behavior toward offline limited learning teaching is evidently experienced by the rural students.

CONCLUSION
Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that most rural students in SMPN3 Purbatua perceived positively the transition of online into limited offline learning-teaching. They confirmed the better of limited offline learning than online in terms of course content coverage, learning effectiveness, student interaction, and satisfaction. The adapted learning teaching conditions promote the betterment of the students' learning outcomes, as they comprehend the materials easily. Respectively, the satisfaction of offline limited learning teaching was also perceived by the students in SMPN 3 Purbatua. However, there was a note that the learning barrier lead the students to feel inconvenient and less excited due to the pressed learning time.
The result of this study can be used as the government's reflection of maintaining the appropriateness of limited offline learning teaching. Through the reflection, the government should provide teacher training to adapt to the changing learning situation. The training will facilitate the teacher to cope with the issue they found during the limited offline learning teaching; course content delivery and classroom interaction. If the rural English teachers maximize their pedagogy competence, in response to course content delivery and classroom interaction, the rural students will fully engage and feel satisfied with the limited offline learning. For further research, it is suggested to explore teachers' perceptions related to the design of course content and lesson plan during the limited offline learning teaching.