In this paper, we report on the experiment aimed to identify the way e-learning influences academic outcome and student satisfaction in ELT and their correlation. The authors are engaged in professional master education and targeted their study at the control and experimental groups. The former included F2F learners who regularly attended conventional English classes while the latter was made up of distant learners who allowed to study online instead of attending lessons. The findings reveal that despite the experimental group participants’ lower academic outcome, their student satisfaction somewhat exceeded the control group measurements. It thus may be concluded that electronic education can be used as an effective tool to enhance motivation, though should not be mistakenly treated as a self-sufficient way to replace the traditional English classroom. © 2019 Association for Computing Machinery.