Many higher education institutions have determined a part or all of the language of instruction to be English which has been a lingua franca. Students are expected to meet the level of English proficiency required by their institutions before starting their program in their departments. To this purpose, students are immersed in an intensive English program at the School of Foreign Languages until they reach the required level of English proficiency. While the aforementioned English preparatory programs had been conducted face to face until the Covid-19 process, they were switched to the hybrid model with the pandemic, and the curriculum was implemented both face to face and remotely. In this process, students were placed in classes according to their levels: some days of the week they had face to face learning, while some days the lessons were held remotely. Within the scope of this study, it is aimed to explore the perceptions of university preparatory students about the concept of English lessons conducted with distance and face to face education and the concept of teacher through metaphors. The study employed the basic interpretive pattern of the basic qualitative method. The sample consisted of 146 students studying in preparatory classes in the 2021-2022 academic year. The data in the study were gathered face to face through the metaphorical perception form prepared by the researchers. Before data analysis, non-metaphorical data were excluded and metaphorical data were included in the content analysis. In the data analysis, themes and codes were created using the content analysis technique. According to the obtained findings, it was determined that the students found the distance education process inefficient and demotivating, while they perceived face to face education as comprehensive and instructive. In distance education, it was found that the teacher was ineffective, while in face to face education, the teacher came to the fore with his/her content knowledge. Based on the results of the study, several implications for practice and research were stated.

Distance education, face to face education, hybrid, preparatory, metaphor