A SWOT Analysis of e- TEFL Curriculum: A Case Study (Research Paper)

It is the vision of all universities which offer e-learning to be competitive in this market. Therefore, evaluating the e-learning curricula to address the needs, and meet the demands is inevitable for any institutions. This study employs SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, opportunities, Threats) analysis as the tool to identify and prioritize the gaps of the current curriculum of e-TEFL (Electronic Teaching English as a Foreign Language) against the stakeholders' vision, strategy, and objectives. To illustrate its possibilities, SWOT analysis is applied to the e-TEFL at the University of Guilan, as the case for this study. In order to collect the required data on the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of the e-TEFL in this research context, a SWOT questionnaire was administered to 50 students and 15 experts. The results of the responses to the questionnaire led to ten major statements for each part of the SWOT whose statistical analyses revealed that although e-TEFL has a certain degree of achievement in this university, there are still a number of significant areas in need of improvement. In particular, the scores of external and internal factors (2.32 and 2.74 respectively) indicated that the strategies employed so far have only been partially effective in exploiting opportunities or defending against threats. Suggestions are made on how its strategies may be improved to take advantage of the opportunities. The study implies that the information obtained through SWOT analysis is valuable for the e-TEFL curriculum designers who constantly seek ways to overcome weaknesses and minimize threats.