Since the Covid-19 pandemic, students' communication with friends and the surrounding environment has become limited. Learning activities were also conducted online so that speaking skills were not optimal. The emergence of these problems made students have perceptions related to online speaking learning courses. Knowing students' perceptions is very important because teachers can conclude whether learning activities are running effectively or not. This study analyzed: 1) the perception of university students regarding speaking lessons during online courses, 2) the challenges that occur in online speaking learning, and 3) the solutions to overcome challenges.
The research used a qualitative method, specifically narrative inquiry, to explore students' perceptions, the challenges, and solution to overcome the challenges of online speaking learning, which can clearly feel the difference when classes were held offline or online. The participants were four students who had taken the Public Speaking class in the fourth semester. The data collection used by the researcher in this study was from an interview and analyzed using thematic analysis.
This study reveals: 1) the participants had positive perception of online speaking learning. The positive impacts are such as being time and cost-efficient, being as effective as offline speaking learning, and less nervousness when practicing public speaking. With the many positive impacts that could be obtained from online speaking learning, participants had good perception of this learning system. 2) The challenges faced by students while participating in online speaking learning are such as they were not fluent when speaking English and their voice during public speaking was unclear. And 3) the solution for the challenges is the participants more often practiced speaking. The challenges during learning and the variety of solutions that students had without realizing them also caused students' speaking skills to increase. The students can try take part in other online speaking classes outside the university to improve speaking skills and the lecturers are expected to change the learning method applied in class to make it more interactive.
