GOOGLE CLASSROOM IN INDONESIAN EFL CLASSES: VOICES FROM HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

The study was conducted to investigate the extent to which Google Classroom (GC) was used in English as Foreign Language (EFL) instruction at the high school level as well as English teachers' and students' views on the use of GC for the instruction. The study employed a qualitative design involving observations and interviews as the methods of data collection. Three English classes at a private high school in Indonesia were observed. Three teachers of the observed classes and six randomly selected students were interviewed. The interview results were analyzed using Thematic Analysis. The study found that GC was used by teachers to upload assignments, monitor students' progress, and make class announcements. Regarding the teacher and student participants' views on the use of Google Classroom, the study found three themes. First, the features of GC were easy to use. Second, GC facilitated a more organized collection of assignments and learning materials. Third, GC had several limitations including difficulty to upload large files, unorganized notifications, and a limited feature allowing instant messaging. From the findings, pedagogical implications and possible limitations are stated along with suggested directions for further relevant studies.


Introduction
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many schools employed Learning Management Systems (LMSs) to facilitate online learning, Google Classroom (GC) being one of them. GC is an application and platform developed by Google to facilitate blended learning activities (Maskar & Wulantina, 2019). GC is considered efficient and it enables students to learn even when they are physically separated from the teachers (Astuti & Indriani, 2020). The fundamental objective of GC is to facilitate file sharing between teachers and students (Tinungki & Nurwahyu, 2020). The decrease in the number of daily COVID-19 cases in Indonesia by the end of 2021 prompted the Minister of Education, Nadiem Makarim, to issue a new regulation regarding regions that could hold limited face-to-face meetings on the condition that complete vaccinations had been completed (Maspul & Amalia, 2021). Even so, the use of LMSs such as GC continued.
Specific to the Indonesian English as Foreign Language (EFL) learning contexts, many recent studies investigated the use of GC in EFL classes in Indonesia (Megawati & Astutik, 2019;Octaberlina & Muslimin, 2020;Okmawati, 2020;Sukmawati & Nensia, 2019;Syahputra & Isnani, 2020;Syakur et al., 2020). A study by Sukmawati and Nensia (2019), for example, reported the use of GC facilitated teachers to quickly design and manage assignments, provide students with feedback in an effective manner, and connect with their students in a simple online space. In comparison, Okmawati (2020) found that there were technical limitations in the use of GC during the blended learning period, such as students were unable to access GC and some students sent assignments using their friends' accounts. Regarding this, to make the most effective use of GC in EFL classes, there needs to be an appropriate comprehension of the platform and its functions on the part of both the teachers and the students (Atmojo & Nugroho, 2020;Megawati & Astutik, 2019).
Several studies on GC were also conducted in EFL contexts outside Indonesia (Albashtawi & Al Bataineh, 2020 in Jordan; Azhar & Iqbal, 2018 in Pakistan;Khalil, 2018 in Palestine). Albashtawi and Al Bataineh (2020) reported that GC positively affected Jordanian EFL students' reading and writing performances. The study concluded that the students' improvement was related to the successful implementation of GC. Teachers could use it in conjunction with face-to-face classes and upload the required materials (Albashtawi & Al Bataineh, 2020). An earlier study conducted by Khalil (2018) in Palestine investigated the use of GC in grammar classes. The study reported that using GC applications for grammar learning positively affected the students' grammar mastery. This was attributed to the features enabling teachers to provide corrective feedback highlighting students' errors encouraging improvement (Khalil, 2018). In comparison, Azhar and Iqbal (2018) found that GC did not have a denotative influence on learning. Instead, optimization and mastery of the use of features in GC were what made it more effective when used (Azhar & Iqbal, 2018).
Several studies reported obstacles and limitations of GC in online learning contexts (Harjanto & Sumarni, 2019;Nursyahrina et al., 2021;Octaberlina & Muslimin, 2020;Syahputra & Isnani, 2020). The site could not be accessed without an internet network and this could be an issue in the learning contexts whose students' and teachers' internet connectivity was not very good (Atmojo & Nugroho, 2020;Octaberlina & Muslimin, 2020;Okmawati, 2020;Rosyada, 2020). Another limitation found by Nursyahrina et al. (2021) was that GC was too "Googlish" in that it had various buttons only recognizable to Google users.
Despite the possible limitations, several studies have reported the advantages it could offer for language learning (Nursyahrina et al., 2021;Rosyada, 2020;Salam, 2020;Singh et al., 2020;Sukmawati & Nensia, 2019). GC enabled teachers to construct an online learning environment in which they could teach and manage all of the assignments they wanted their students to work on (Singh et al., 2020). Furthermore, students could gain information through interaction, communication, and discussion using the GC (Nursyahrina et al., 2021). Furthermore, a study by Singh et al., (2020) also reported that GC is innovative, seeing as how the teacher and student interface are created and designed primarily for teachers and students to interact and make the learning process more meaningful. Sukmawati and Nensia (2019) found that their student participants felt excited using GC as it was easy to use anywhere using a mobile phone and could also be integrated with other Google Applications such as Google Forms, Google Docs, and Google Drive. Teachers and students can benefit from the numerous features of the platform (Rusdiana et al., 2020). For example, teachers can submit instructional materials to GC so that students can access them anywhere and at any time (Osborne et al., 2018). The uploaded materials can be in the form of articles or text, images, videos, audio, and various other teaching materials (Okmawati, 2020). Later the students will receive a notification alert whenever a teacher makes a new upload (Osborne et al., 2018), allowing students to keep track of the progress of the class more easily. Additionally, in a study outside the EFL context, Tinungki and Nurwahyu (2020) reported that GC contains a variety of features that make things easier for both students and teachers to engage in online instructional activities, suggesting the advantages of GC may not be limited to language learning field.
Several studies have investigated teachers' and students' views of using GC in EFL classes in the Indonesian context and reported various findings (Maskar & Wulantina, 2019;Megawati & Astutik, 2019;Octaberlina & Muslimin, 2020). Student participants reported that GC could make the learning process fun, can foster independent learning attitudes, motivations, and creativity, foster active learning attitudes, and make learning effective (Alfina, 2020;Astuti & Indriani, 2020;Maskar & Wulantina, 2019;Rosyada, 2020). Student participants in a study by Salam (2020), also acknowledged that GC enabled them to submit their tasks on time, obtain feedback from their teachers, and communicate with their instructors about course descriptions. Furthermore, the teacher participants in the study by Harjanto and Sumarni (2019), reported that GC helped promote collaborative learning, minimize problems, organize students' documents, and save time. In comparison, the use of GC was reported by the student participants to be inefficient because they needed a suitable device and a good internet connection (Octaberlina & Muslimin, 2020).
Previous studies on GC in EFL classes in Indonesia have predominantly focused on university contexts (Megawati & Astutik, 2019;Octaberlina & Muslimin, 2020;Okmawati, 2020;Sukmawati & Nensia, 2019;Syakur et al., 2020). For this reason, it could be worthwhile to conduct a study on the use of GC for EFL instruction in an Indonesian high school context. This is because, during the Covid-19 pandemic, GC may have been widely used in many Indonesian high schools. Furthermore, involving both English teachers and students in a study could also provide a more comprehensive picture of the phenomenon because they may have different viewpoints on the same issue. By knowing their students' viewpoints on the use of GC thus seeing it in "students' shoes", teachers may obtain knowledge of how to use GC more appropriately and effectively. For researchers, this study may pave a way for further study on the use of GC in the Indonesian high school EFL context, which is thus far relatively under-researched.
Considering the aforementioned rationales, the present study intends to answer the following two questions. First, to what extent is the use of Google Classroom in High School English instruction? Second, what are teachers' and students' views on the use of Google Classroom in English instruction?

Research Methods and Instruments
The study used a qualitative design employing observations and interviews. Qualitative design focuses on people's real-life experiences and is a great way to find out what people think about the events, processes, and structures of their lives and how they relate to the social world (Miles et al., 2014). In line with the reiteration of Miles et al. (2014) on the forte of qualitative design in exploring a phenomenon and participants' experiences in-depth, qualitative design was employed in the present study to explore the use of GC in English instruction and obtain in-depth perspectives of both teachers and students regarding its use.
The data were collected using observations and interviews. Observations were used to obtain the answers to the first research question whilst interviews were used to obtain the answer to the second research question and provide support for observation data for the first research question. An observation checklist was used as the instrument to guide the observations and field notes were used to note down relevant findings. There were two types of observations employed in the present study. The first was observations of synchronous meetings in Google Meet. The second was observations on activities recorded in GC. Next, an interview checklist was used as the instrument to ensure the interviews were relevant to the research questions throughout.

Research Setting and Participants
The setting of the present study was a private senior high school in a big city in Java, Indonesia. The observations were conducted in three different English classes, both the synchronous meetings and the activities in GC. Each class consisted of 30 students with the age ranging from 15 to 17. The interviews involved the three teachers of the observed English classes, all of who were females, and six randomly selected students who indicated their willingness to be invited for interviews. Of these six student interviewees, three students were females, and the other three were males.

Ethical Consideration
The present study adhered to the principles of research ethics. Before data collection, gatekeeper consent was secured from the principal of the high school becoming the setting of the study. Then, informed consent forms were distributed to both the English teachers and the students. In the forms, the prospective participants were informed of the researchers' identities, the objectives and the methods of the study as well as what they were expected to do if they decided to participate in it (Gray, 2014). The distribution of consent forms also implied the implementation of voluntary participation (Israel & Hay, 2006). Confidentiality was also maintained by not disclosing the name of the institution and through the use of pseudonyms throughout this report (Allen & Wiles, 2016).

Data Collection and Analysis
The data collection was conducted from October 2021 up to December 2021. During this period, there was a shift from a fully online mode of instruction to limited face-to-face instruction per the regulation issued by the government. The first step of data collection was to conduct observations on synchronous sessions of three English classes and observations on the activities on GC of these classes. These observations were intended to obtain an initial "picture" of the use of GC in the class instructions. Some data from observations also became the basis of several interview questions. The next was to interview the three English teachers whose classes were observed. The step after that was to interview six students that had been randomly selected using Random Picker Application. These students were selected from a list of students indicating their willingness to be interviewed in the consent forms they filled out previously. All the interviews were conducted in the Indonesian language.
The following were the steps for analyzing the interview data. First, the interview recordings were fully transcribed and translated into English. Next, the English transcriptions were analyzed using Thematic Analysis per the research questions (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2012. The steps of Thematic Analysis were getting familiar with the data by reading and re-reading, generating preliminary codes, generating possible themes and reviewing them, and refining the themes best representing the whole data (Braun & Clarke, 2012;Maguire & Delahunt, 2017). The last three steps were conducted by making annotations on the Word documents containing the transcripts and taking separate notes. Extract samples best representing the themes are presented in this report for further analysis and discussion.
Concerning that, the observation data from the observation checklist and field notes were presented qualitatively per the themes emerging in the interview transcripts. Hence, it could be said that the observation data were used to support the interview data.
The sequence of data collection and analysis can be seen in Figure 1.

Findings and Discussion
The data were gathered from observations and interviews. For reference tracing, the following codes are used. Three classes observed were XI Science 1 (E1), X Social 2 (E2), and XII Science 3 (E3). The pseudonyms of the three teacher participants (T) were Aca (Female/F), Lala (F), and Titi (F) and those of the six student participants (S) were as follows: Che (F), Rhere (F), Gege (F), Vin (Male/M), Steve (M), and Sam (M). "OBV" indicates the data obtained from observation in English synchronous classrooms, whist "AOBV" indicates the data obtained from asynchronous observation in GC. "INTV" indicates interview data. For example, "[INTV/Aca/F/T]" indicates that the data are from Aca, a female teacher interviewee.

The use of Google Classroom in high school English instruction
Based on the result of the observations and interview, there were two themes on the extent to which GC was used in the observed English classes and these themes can be seen in Table 1. Table 1. The extent of the use of Google Classroom in high school English instruction Theme 1.
Google Classroom was used to upload assignments and monitor students' performance. Theme 2.
Google Classroom was used to make class announcements.

Theme 1. Google Classroom was used to upload assignments and monitor students' performance.
It was found from the observation that GC was used in all three observed classes. Aca, the E1 teacher, for example, used GC to save materials to be presented.
The teacher (Aca) asked the students to open PowerPoint (PPT) in GC and said, "Open the PPT that I have uploaded in Google Classroom. And read it for five minutes". All students followed the instructions. For five minutes, all students focused on the PPT… Before the class ended, the teacher said, "Have you checked the latest task I uploaded in Google Classroom?" More than half of the students answered "Yes, Miss!" and a few responded, "Not yet, Miss." The teacher then continued to explain the task uploaded. She said, "I have uploaded a new task in Google Classroom. It contains three paragraphs; all you have to do is write additional two paragraphs about your personal experience." [OBV/E1] GC was also used to monitor students' performance regarding assignments and assignment collection. It could be seen in the following result of observation in E2 taught by Lala.
After asking for attendance at the beginning of the class, the teacher (Lala) said, "Have you finished the task I gave you last week?" She later explained the task a week before that was uploaded to Google Classroom. Checking the Google Classroom, she mentioned some students who did not submit the assignment. By the end of the class, the teacher explained a task about a descriptive text…The task was uploaded to Google Classroom, and the teacher told the students that they could upload any file format of the task to Google Classroom… [OBV/E2] Regarding the aforementioned findings on the use of GC to upload assignments and monitor students' performance, several previous studies reported the same results (Nursyahrina et al., 2021;Okmawati, 2020;Rosita et al., 2019). Two recent studies in the Indonesian high school context also reported the effectiveness of GC to facilitate teachers in providing materials for students and providing secure document storage for both teachers and students (Nursyahrina et al., 2021;Okmawati, 2020).
In the observation in E3, when the teacher, Titi, was explaining the materials in front of the class, the electricity suddenly went out. The teacher did not panic and the class continued because students could access the materials from GC independently through their respective devices.
… The class started and the teacher showed the learning materials on the projector screen. After the class began, the light suddenly went out. The teacher (Titi) said, "Please open the PPT that I have uploaded in Google Classroom." All the students immediately opened their Google Classroom using their gadgets… Before the class ended, the teacher mentioned the next task that would be uploaded in Google Classroom after the next class finished their session. [OBV/E3] The aforementioned findings from observations generally suggested that materials uploaded in GC helped teachers and students be more prepared during instructional activities. GC served as a consolidated location for all learning activities. These findings were also supported by the results of interviews with the three teachers. They shared that GC was mostly used to upload materials before class and to upload tasks after class ended. Aca, for example, highlighted that she uploaded material to GC to prevent any troubles during class. She stated:

"I'm afraid if there is a power outage or something… all the PPT or files are already on each student's cell phone. So, when [I am] explaining or reviewing materials it can be easy." [INTV/Aca/F/T]
In line with Aca's viewpoint, Titi reported that she chose to upload materials to GC when she could not explain the material directly and students needed to selfstudy. She reported: "…Google Classroom is used as a forum for posting assignments, or materials that I can't explain directly because of one reason or another." [INTV/Titi/F/T] The teachers' testimonies were in line with those of several student participants. Sam, for instance, commented that GC was practical for collecting and archiving assignments. He said:

"I think Google Classroom is good -I mean for collecting assignments... I don't need to send them (assignments) via WhatsApp one by one to all the teachers. It can be collected and archived in Google Classroom." [INTV/Sam/M/S]
These findings suggested that GC had helped both teachers and students in terms of assignment collection and archiving. Regarding these findings, a recent classroom action research study by Syakur et al. (2020) at an Indonesian university context reported that the platform helped teachers keep instructional materials and activities in the cloud and this contributed to a generally more effective instructional process.

Theme 2: Google Classroom was used to make class announcements.
Through observations, the study found that GC was also used to make class announcements, for example, class schedules, announcements about topics to be studied in a meeting, and meeting links on Google Meet. The following observation result showed an example of a class announcement.
One day before the meeting, the teacher gives an announcement about what time the class would be held. In E3, GC was also used to announce topics of the day. Titi, the E3 teacher, reported:

"I asked questions there (posting a question on that day's topic) and students discussed it in the stream menu on Google Classroom." [INTV/Titi/F/T]
In line with Titi's reports, from the asynchronous observation in class E1, Aca used GC to provide announcements about the materials to be studied and information to students about the next meeting. She announced: Good morning, fellas… Good news for you, there will be no meeting today, but there will be an activity you must do. Find the topic of the Invitation; Formal and Informal on the internet or book; read it and learn it by yourselves first. Next week, without any further explanation of this topic, there will be a quiz to check whether or not you understand this topic. [AOBV/E1] These findings were in line with the findings of several previous studies (Harjanto & Sumarni, 2019;Nursyahrina et al., 2021;Rosita et al., 2019;Salam, 2020;Sudarsana et al., 2019). Teachers could publish announcements to the class stream, which students could respond on, allowing for two-way communication between teachers and students (Nursyahrina et al., 2021;Octaberlina & Muslimin, 2020). Furthermore, Nursyahrina et al., (2021) reported that to ensure that students noticed important messages or inquiries for the announcement, the teachers could just post the announcement to the class stream, and they would be visible as soon as the students had logged in. Through the use of the announcement feature, teachers could easily distribute important announcements to all students, including assignments, quizzes, deadlines, and feedback (Astuti & Indriani, 2020;Harjanto & Sumarni, 2019;Nursyahrina et al., 2021;Okmawati, 2020;Tinungki & Nurwahyu, 2020).

Teachers' and students' views on the use of Google Classroom in English instruction
The present study found three themes regarding the teachers' and students' views on the use of GC in English instruction. These themes can be seen in Table  2. Table 2. Teachers' and students' views on the use of GC in English instruction Theme 1.
The features of Google Classroom were easy to use. Theme 2.
Google Classroom facilitated a more organized collection of assignments and learning materials. Theme 3.
Google Classroom had several limitations.

Theme 1. The features of Google Classroom were easy to use.
Both the teachers and the students agreed that GC was generally easy to use. Aca, for example, reported:

"…. There are indeed some teachers who need time to practice [using Google Classroom] several times… It is easy [using Google Classroom] … although it's not really that easy and you still have to learn [still] it's easy to understand…, especially during distance learning… the [newest and additional] features appear one by one and it is very easy [to use]. [INTV/Aca/F/T]
In line with Aca's statement, Vin also stated that GC had more complete features than other platforms. Regarding this, he reported: The findings conformed to several authors' reiteration of the advantages of GC. Sudarsana et al., (2019), for example, stated that some of the most important advantages of GC are its time-saving and organizing capabilities. There have also been several studies reporting that GC facilitated learning, improved cooperation, and communication (e.g Nursyahrina et al., 2021;Octaberlina & Muslimin, 2020;Sudarsana et al., 2019).
Titi, also shared how easy it was to use GC, especially since it could be accessed through different devices. She reported: These findings confirmed several authors' assessments of GC (Harjanto & Sumarni, 2019;Salam, 2020). GC is available via various types of computers or smartphones (Harjanto & Sumarni, 2019). Salam (2020) believed that GC is a positive innovation in education because it provides numerous benefits to both teachers and students, including the ability to access the application from anywhere and at any time as long as they have an internet connection.

Theme 2. Google Classroom facilitated a more organized collection of assignments and learning materials.
Some of the teachers and students were in agreement that GC facilitated a more organized collection of assignments and materials. Lala, for example, reported: "I prefer to use Google Classroom because it's more organized. It also archives [all tasks, material archived to Google Drive automatically], so you don't have to carry around student notebooks everywhere." [INTV/Lala/F/T] Rhere was also in agreement. The tasks collected became more neatly organized and collected into one database. She stated: "If we send an assignment, it's clear where to send it, and where it goes (the task). So, it is clear that the task can be entered directly into the school data. That's a plus (using Google Classroom)." [INTV/Rhere/F/S] This finding was in line with the idea of Nursyahrina et al., (2021) stating that GC makes it easier to stay organized by consolidating all of the assignments, grades, and announcements into one location. For example, in Lala's case, by using GC there was no need to carry books anymore. The fact that everything is kept in Classroom Drive folders and is easily accessible with a single click makes it much easier to locate completed assignments or individual student works (Nursyahrina et al., 2021;Syakur et al., 2020).

Theme 3. Google Classroom had several limitations.
Apart from the reported advantages of GC, the platform also had limitations. Several students reported that their submissions could not be opened by the teachers. Rhere, for example, stated: The same issue was reported in a study by Islam (2019) in a Bangladeshi context where students reported being unable to upload large files and their internet was disconnected in the middle of the process. The similarity of findings between the two studies may partly be attributed to relatively the same internet speed that the participants used to access GC in both studies.
Another reported limitation was the notifications which were not categorized or clustered based on classes or lessons students took using GC. Steve, for example, reported: The problem with the notification feature was also experienced by participants in several studies (Harjanto & Sumarni, 2019;Islam, 2019). The notification mechanism of this platform has undesirable problems (Islam, 2019). The notification feature includes all the notifications for all classes and this may confuse students.
Steve further stated that GC could not accommodate instant messaging, for example, to ask questions to teachers. He stated: "I asked (my teacher) via WhatsApp (about assignments). In Google Classroom, the response took a little longer." [INTV/Steve/M/S] Regarding this finding, several studies also reported the limitations of the absence of the "message" option (Islam, 2019;Nursyahrina et al., 2021). Due to this absence, if there were questions students wished to discuss, students or teachers should upload the questions in the "stream" or "comment" menu and the message was read by the whole class (Islam, 2019). As a result, students had a difficult time submitting queries, questions, or clarifications to their teachers (Islam, 2019).

Conclusion
These findings have several implications for in-service teachers planning to use GC in teaching English. Firstly, for the in-service teachers, this study can provide them with insight into using GC to support them in teaching, for example scheduling a task submission and monitoring students' performance. Teachers can also optimize the features of GC for convenience in checking and grading assignments as well as to archive the students' works over time. Knowing several limitations of this platform, teachers anticipate and prepare an alternative plan.
Furthermore, this study has several limitations. First, this study was conducted when the school was in a transition period from online to limited faceto-face, so GC was not used optimally. If the study had been conducted before the period of limited face-to-face meetings, the data would have been richer since the use of GC and its features could have been more optimized. Furthermore, because the present study was qualitative, the findings may be context-specific and may not be applied to a wider context. However, qualitative replication may still be possible in contexts sharing relatively the same characteristics as that of the present study.
Future studies may look into the applications of GC during offline classes. Such studies could explore more teachers' and students' views of using more features of GC in the post-pandemic era either in limited face-to-face instruction or fully face-to-face to gain more data from the participants in different settings.