Flipped Classroom Learning: A Current Issue in English Language Teaching in Pandemic-Era as Perceived by Lecturers

: The current practice of teaching English and other subject is through online mode. This condition happens because of the Covid-19 pandemic. All countries in the world, including Indonesia, have to carry out online teaching and learning. Teaching English should be done at least y using blended learning, which one of its versions is flipped classroom. Unfortunately, many teachers and students in some areas were not ready for it. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the lecturers’ perception of flipped classroom. This research applied a mixed-method and data were collected through questionnaire and interview. Based on the results, it is found that lecturers have a positive perception about flipped classroom, and they believe that lecturers should be competence in blended learning, mastery of IT-based education, not only in time Covid-19 but also in normal condition. This study recommends further studies on the effect of online learning, especially flipped classroom on students’ achievement and/or on the lecturers’ professionalism.


INTRODUCTION
Blended learning is an approach which is broadly implemented in this pandemic era of Corona Virus Diseases 2019 . It is a process of learning which combines online and offline modes. Almost all education levels perform the process of learning through this type of practice. Lecturers and students must be able to use the internet as a source and media for teaching and learning altogether/ in the current situation, it is no longer reasonable for rejecting the online learning (E-learning) practice. So that, the students and the teachers should be familiar with various types of E-learning. The wide and rapid spread of Covid-19 nowadays make the ministry of education not permit the students in all levels of education to study in the classrooms every day like normal. Alternatively, schools establish a shift schedule to allow different groups of students to attend classes at schools or campuses at different times. This condition made blended learning become a familiar practice which allow the students learn from school and home. It makes the internet users and learning managements systems users increases.
The use of internet and digital media have been popular nowadays, in almost aspects of life. The impact of information technology (IT) development also seen in educational sector. The implementation of blended learning is one of its examples. A recent study found that students had a positive perception about it . This pandemic era forced the students and lecturers to be knowledgeable with blended learning. One type of blended learning is flipped classroom. Flipped classroom learning (FCL) which is an alternative for involving digital media in teaching and learning. In FCL, the process of learning reversed. Teachers and students will engage each other using digital tools through internet.
FCL is an inverted learning system. The process of learning in the classroom will be taken outside, then the process of doing exercises and practice will be done in the classroom (Bergmann & Sams, 2012). In the beginning of the creator, they created this learning for solving teachers' problem in teaching science. In development of educational field, it can be one answer for helping the teachers and the students to improve the students' language teaching and learning process (Elvi et al., 2020;Fazlali, 2019;Ramadhanty & Puspitaloka, 2020;Soliman, 2016). It is one part of blended learning where the teachers reverse the process of learning in the classroom by combining offline and online learning (Toledo & Pèrez, 2017). The process of learning is done online and offline, where the online learning to learn the materials by the students in their free time outside of the classroom, and the exercise or discussion will be done in the classroom meeting. Reversing classroom process gives the students benefits because they will have flexible time for the students to learn their learning materials. However, the displeasure of the students to online learning is a problem to be solved where the students still was unhappy to join online learning (Harida, 2020). So, flipped learning will give the students experience to study by using internet in which very familiar and crucial in this current time.
The students and lecturers have different function in flipped classroom learning. The role of the lecturers is to guide and organize the material and activity for the students' learning (Aljaraideh, 2019).
However, the students are following the guidance from the lecturers to study and preparing self to prepare themselves to discuss the materials inside of the classroom. The preparation of the lesson can be by giving assignments, quizzes, exercises, websites, or other related materials in which available in websites. It can be accessible from webs or can be prepared by the lecturers and share it to websites. Based on the important of this learning system nowadays, the lecturers' perception is essential factor in deciding the success of teaching and learning process based on this strategy.
There are still many locations in Indonesia that are far from the solution of online teaching, so the teachers and the students got difficulties in joining the lesson. Some of them had limitation of the internet quota, in integrating their learning with the internet, in typing some of the web sources, the ability to use online applications, and unhabitual in using the internet as the sources of learning (Erdemir & Yangın-Ekşi, 2019;Ramadhani, 2021;Syafii, 2018). However, the students and the teachers/lecturers must be ready to confront online learning because the development of education is needed.
The lecturers of TBI FTIK IAIN Padangsidimpuan have applied the blended system practice of teaching and learning for more than two semesters. Some of them got difficulties in following this condition, however the others enjoyed it. The lecturers who enjoyed learning in this mode is the youngest lecturers who are getting easier to do and to apply it. The oldest or senior lecturers chose the study by using offline mode; when it is asked to do blended system, they asked their students to take the books and the materials at home, then asked the students to give or submit task in a certain time (Harida, 2021). Thus, it is significant to be investigated. Then, this paper is aimed to explore the lecturers' perception on blended learning system and flipped classroom learning to the students' English language teaching in the pandemic era.

METHOD
The mixed method applied in this study. Giving questionnaires and doing interviews to the English lecturers in English Program (TBI) Tarbiyah and Teacher Training Faculty (FTIK) of State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN) Padangsidimpuan. The questionnaires are based on the knowledge and application of the strategy of teaching and learning on the needs of lecturers for flipped classroom learning, while the interview was done in order to verify the data from questionnaires. The questionnaires were given to the lecturers acquiring their opinion about blended learning (4 items) and flipped classroom (8 items); then, interview was done to the participant to clarify their answer in questionnaires about blended and flipped classroom. From eight lecturers in English programs, four of them were used as the participants of this study. They were taken as participant based on their experiences in online learning, while three of them rarely used blended mode, and one of them is the researcher herself. In qualitative analysis, the result was reducing, displaying, and interpreting; then, the values of mean-score, standard deviation, t-test and One-Way-ANOVA used to analyze the quantitative data.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Based on the data, it is shown that the lecturers of TBI FTIK IAIN Padangsidimpuan is familiar with blended learning. The data from the questionnaires can be seen on the table 1. Based on table 1, it is known that four lecturers concurred on blended learning. They have known this kind of learning because all of them answer yes to the first question. It means that 100% of lecturers in TBI FTIK IAIN Padangsidimpuan have accustomed to this kind of learning. It is related to their agreement about blended learning, all of them or 100% of lecturers agreed the process of learning done with blended learning. Although they have been familiar with it, only 83% of lecturers applied it in their teaching and learning process. For the fourth question, it is known that 83% of lecturers appreciated their knowledge about various kinds of blended learning. Based on the criteria that can be seen on the percentages of the score, it is in the range of 80% -100%, and according to Riduwan (2009) it is at a very good level. It means that the lecturers have a highly accepted appreciation of it. It is seen that 100 percent of the English lecturers recognized blended learning, especially in the current condition of the education field which requires the implementation of blended learning. Using blended learning actually has been good in the condition of the pandemic covid-19 era, as described by Aji, et al., ( 2 0 2 0 ) that the teachers in Parahima Institute of Indonesia stated this kind of learning is very helpful in the covid-19 era. They found that the teachers had a positive perception of blended learning; the teacher stated that it made the learning process run effectively, made the students learn independently, and was easy to be used. Although, it is good to be used, the teacher still has problems with an internet connection, timeconsuming, and less experience. Eka Sustri Harida, Jufrizal, Sojuangon Rambe: Flipped Classroom Learning… In this condition, firstly, the teachers need to be familiar with it before implementing in their teaching and learning process. As it has been shown in table 1 that the lecturers have been used it in their regular teaching. It is proved by 100% of teachers in TBI FTIK IAIN Padangsidimpuan have known this kind of learning and 83% of lecturers said agreement t oo use it in their teaching and learning process. This system of learning can be applied not only in the pandemic era but also in all teaching and learning processes in the industrial 4.0 era, to be welcome with the 5.0 era. This era is predicted that the use of internet or digital learning will be more than before. So, the teachers and students must prepare themselves to take on it.
Moreover, there are many kinds of blended learning, one of them is flipped classroom learning. The teachers can choose one of the types that comfortable and suitable with their lesson and materials. The lecturers in TBI FTIK IAIN Padangsidimpuan have realized the benefits of blended learning, especially in flipped classroom. Almost all questions about flipped learning were answered by the lecturers with good quality. From 8 questions about FCL, there are 2 questions under 80%, it is about the time of the lecturers are familiar with it and about the agreement of the lecturers to apply it in all of their teaching and learning processes. It is assumed that they can use various kinds of blended learning not only flipped classroom. However, 93% agreement accepted with the flipped classroom. It means that the lecturers have a positive perception of flipped classroom learning. Their perceptiveness on FCL is in the excellent category. The data can be shown in table 2.
From the table it is shown that most of lecturers have well-known with this kind of learning. However, not all lecturers applied it in their every teaching and learning process. As seen that 100% lecturers agreed to implement the flipped classroom learning method. From these findings, it can be said that lecturers at IAIN Padangsidimpuan accepted this kind of learning. They are also familiar with blended learning and flipped learning mode. Implementation of this model will not always have to be done in every subject; lecturers can use a variety of learning models, but blended learning is a must during this pandemic condition. Something new in this article is that the lecturer does not reject this learning model at all. In some cases, teachers and students' object to online learning, because they are not ready with all the facilities and lack of preparation (Abdullah et al., 2019;Akhter, 2021;Apuke & Iyendo, 2018;Harida, 2020) The lack of digital resources, difficulty to be applied in listening and speaking classes, and unconfident in learning are some problems found. Many problems are faced in this online learning, but the English lecturers in IAIN Padangsidimpuan accepted it with a positive sense and good perception to improve the student learning process.Further, it needs to be seen from the result of statistic values. Firstly, it needs to evaluate the data whether it is normally of not to be continued to the next steps. Look at table 3 about normality test. From the result of Shapiro Wilk, it is known that the result of Sig 0.850 > 0.05. It means that the data of the lecturers about the perception on flipped learning is distributed normally. So, it can be continued to one sample t-test fulfilled. When t-test is higher than t-table, it means that the assumption is accepted. It means that the lecturers have positive perception on blended and flipped learning.
With these findings, it can be said that the lecturers at IAIN Padangsidimpuan can well accept flipped learning, they have a positive attitude to this kind of learning. They are quite accepting of technological developments, especially to support the teaching and learning process. Lecturers are ready for changes in the education system, ready to face a new era in the education field, digitalizing the learning system. However, there have been many findings showed that online learning is very helpful in teaching (Ramadhani, 2021), and blended learning for teaching English teaching (Albiladi & Alshareef, 2019). Moreover, flipped learning is very helpful in solving the students' problems in learning. According to Zarrinfard et al., (2020) andFung (2015) flipped learning can help in accommodating and promoting the students' center learning because it only used simple technology. It also helped the teachers to communicate with students and parents in order to control their children in learning. Moreover, this kind of learning also facilitating learning becomes active, well-being teamwork, making autonomous learning and making the students and the teachers can do interaction actively (Ansori & Nafi', 2019). With these findings, it is provident for the goodness of flipped classroom learning. So, there are many reasons for accepting flipped classroom learning as one solution for teaching English in the Covid-19 era.
Although some teachers in some areas are not used to the blended learning system (Gunawan et al., 2020;Schlenz et al., 2020;Syafii, 2018), the findings showed that the lecturers have good perspective that blended learning should be used for facing the technological era. Even though some of the teachers had lack of technology ability (El-Rizaq, 2021); the lecturers of English department IAIN Padangsidimpuan are ready to use blended learning system and FCL in order to help their learning process and the students' learning result getting better. They are ready to improve their ability in technological literacy to support the developmental era of education. By using media and various kinds of strategies in teaching, it can be minimized the problems of the English teachers in teaching (Nurhamidah et al., 2018). Increasing teachers' ability in Eka Sustri Harida, Jufrizal, Sojuangon Rambe: Flipped Classroom Learning… using various kinds of media, by digitalization English teaching, the result of English teaching is hopefully can be more interested, so the students' achievement will be better also.
Based on the result, it is seen that the four English lecturers at IAIN Padangsidimpuan open themselves to the development of the education, and ready to upgrade their technological literacy to support their learning. They agree that in Covid-19 era, the blended learning and flipped classroom learning used in English teaching. They also have positive perception on it. Moreover, they also do agree to use this kind of learning not only in the Pandemic era, but also in the normal condition of education.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
All lecturers that have been chosen as the participants in this research stated that they are ready to face the technological era in education.
When many English teachers/lecturers rejected to use digitalization, the English lecturers in IAIN Padangsidimpuan are ready to face it. They have positive perception on blended learning and also on flipped classroom learning in the pandemic era. They are also ready to implement it in their teaching and learning process combined with various other learning models. M o s t of the lecturers agreed that FCL can be applied in English teaching at higher level.
Unfortunately, this result did not complete yet because the study did not make the relationship of the FCL to students' result of learning, so it is suggested to do further research in the impact of FCL and Blended learning to the students English learning result. Based on the result of research, it is implied that this kind of learning can apply in English language teaching. The English lecturers can make any collaboration and further experimental research or classroom action research to know more the effectiveness of FCL in English language teaching. So, the lecturers can see whether the FCL can improve the students' achievements or not.