Revealing High-Achieving Students’ Experiences in Leveraging EPISODEN for Practicing Speaking: Case Study of Islamic Boarding School Students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24256/ideas.v14i2.12268Keywords:
Islamic boarding school, speaking practice, online platformAbstract
Speaking in foreign languages is an unavoidable challenge especially when those languages become school subjects. The same challenge is faced by English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners in Indonesia, who often encounter psychological and environmental obstacles that limit their opportunities to practice spoken English, particularly within Islamic boarding school settings. This qualitative case study explores how four high-achieving Grade 10 students (two female, two male) from one Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo, Indonesia, experienced approximately one year of practicing English speaking through EPISODEN, an online video-conference platform that pairs learners with international interlocutors for short conversational sessions. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews supported by observation and analyzed across four dimensions: cognitive, emotional, social, and pedagogical. Findings indicate that participants perceived several benefits, including increased confidence, expanded vocabulary, opportunities for real-time communication with international interlocutors, reduced speaking anxiety, and space for self-regulated learning. However, participants also reported constraints related to inconsistent interlocutor engagement and a lack of systematic corrective feedback from the platform. Beyond the platform itself, boarding-school conditions, including strict daily schedules, restrictions on electronic device use, and limited access to private spaces, further constrained participants' ability to make full use of EPISODEN. These findings suggest that online conversational platforms can meaningfully supplement students' self-reported speaking practice and confidence, though their usefulness in boarding-school settings depends strongly on institutional flexibility and consistent teacher support.
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