Abstract
Thang (2005, 2001) and Thang and Azarina (2004) brought in question the extent of autonomy of Malaysian undergraduates. Their studies on the undergraduates of a public university in Malaysia disclosed that both the on-campus and the distance learners lacked autonomy and awareness of language learning and language learning processes. In view of that, an online English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course for undergraduates of Science and Technology of the public university was devised. The aims are two folds: to help them handle scientific texts and more importantly to increase their autonomy, interest and motivation in reading scientific texts on their own. Students have to respond to the interactive lessons and activities online and give feedback to the various sections in the provided online questionnaires. This paper first describes the rationale behind the design of the course and the various components of the course. Finally, it shares the results of a study that traces the 23 students' attitudes and reactions towards the online course over six weeks. The findings reveal that the students generally react positively towards the online component and they are interested and motivated to learn via this mode. However, some problems have to be overcome.
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