Students' views on English languege courses through di̇stance educati̇on

The main purpose of this study is to find an answer to the question 'What are students' attitudes towards teaching English through distance education?' In this study, it is aimed to determine the attitudes of the students towards their computer-mediated English course taken distantly, based on the data collected from freshman students at Gaziantep University. The study was designed as a survey method. It was conducted with students on the central and rural campuses of Gaziantep University; But only 368 out of 410 students were evaluated. To enhance the validity of the research results, the questionnaire was arranged as three sections. In the third section, students' opinions about English were asked, and those who presented a negative view of English were eliminated while those who had a positive attitude to the language were kept for data analysis. To analyze the data, frequences, percent ratios, anca test and chi-square test were used. Statistical analyses were carried out with SPSS 15.0 for Windows. Upon analyzing the data, it was found out that the students were uncertain how Computer-Mediated Distance Education would affect their academic success. It was also discovered that the students had a positive view of the distinctive properties of Computer-Mediated Distance Education over classical teaching method such as visual elements, availability at any place and time needed, learning at one's own pace, using technology in education and so on. Besides, female students pointed out that they felt more comfortable in Computer-Based Distance Education due to lack of pressure from teachers. Keywords: Distance education, computer-based education, student attitudes, teaching English through distance education.