By distance learning we understand an educational situation in which a teacher and his/her students are not placed in one physical environment. Distance learning was first applied in the 19th century and has undergone a long way of technological improvement. It has become indispensable in the time of global pandemic. It is characterized by both advantages and challenges, and, correspondingly, in normal situations is used by adults for additional education or at any level /age in combination with traditional face-to-face education. The goal of this paper is to assess how ready we turned out to be to involuntary, caused by extreme situation of coronavirus, switching over to distance learning. The article presents results obtained from six countries – Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Nigeria, UK, and Ukraine - as well as some views of educators from several other countries. Although the samples were not representative by number of the research populations, they tried to take into consideration the strata involved (school/university teachers, younger than 30, 31-50, older than 50), in order to be trustworthy. The conclusion made is that the trend is that we (at least, in many countries, or many of us) are still rather far from ready to carry out so often declared and advertised distance learning with optimal efficiency and much work is needed to be able to switch to high-quality distance education.

COVID-19 pandemic and its waves have resulted in transitions from face-to-face activities to completely online learning, then to hybrid learning, and then to a peculiar face-to-face COVID-19-time learning (with masks, distance-keeping, etc.). As the situation tends to continue for an indefinite time, it is important to study the existing experience and to take the obtained results into consideration in the future practice. Therefore, the presented research attempted to study students’ view on the experience of face-to-face (F-2-F), hybrid and online EFL teaching in universities during 2019-2021. With this purpose, a quantitative study was carried out through questioning the opinions of English as a foreign language (EFL) students in Georgia and Italy. The advantages and disadvantages of the three modes were assessed by 466 (430 of them from Georgia and 36 from Italy) volunteer respondents. The outcomes of the study were analyzed and elaborated in the forms of practical recommendations for more effective planning and implementation of EFL teaching during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Keywords: F2F; Hybrid; Distance Education; EFL

The aim of this research is to examine the impact of Achievement Goal motivation Theory on students’ academic success.  Research asserts  that possesing  mastery-learning oriented motivation has a positive impact on students’ academic achievement. This study may be useful for students, teachers and administrators in the identification of college students who are considered at risk for math failure or students who are on the verge of dropping out of college. The research applies a quantitative method of study. Quantitative data have been analyzed using Elliot’s AGQ (Achievement Goal Questionnaire). In the case study of a private Suleyman Sah University, Turkey, the focus of the AGQ has been derived from the central research question: How and why applications of Achievement Goal Theory affect students’ success in mathematics at university? In order to identify students’ goal orientation,   Elliot’s AGQ was given to 53 students who were selected randomly in math classes. Their course exam results were compared to their motivational types. Based on the quantitative  data analiysis, the research suggests that the best way to change one’s thinking during a testing situation (and hence reduce or elminate one’s anxiety) is to intentionally change one’s performance goal and performance-avoidance goal into only a mastry-learning goal

The article is dedicated to the issue of teaching EFL listening in Kurdistan region of Iraq. The important role of listening skills in a FL learning is presented, and the difficulties of listening are analyzed, including language (vocabulary, grammar) and psychological (low motivation and self-confidence as well as a high level of listening anxiety) factors. The article involves a questionnaire survey with participation of 98 students from 8 universities in Kurdistan Region of Iraq and 28 teachers from 7 universities in the same region (universities mostly overlap, so totally 9 universities are involved). The survey shows that the level of listening anxiety among the students is quite high.

The article deals with various aspects of plagiarism: definition (discriminating it from cheating and copyright violation), types (intended / unintended), involved people, causes, prevention, detection and punishment of plagiarism. A survey (questionnaire containing 42 items to be assessed in a 5-point Likert scale and one open- ended item) was conducted in Georgia. The questionnaire developed based on the literature review was uploaded on social media in three variants (to analyze the results separately and compare them): for students, for researchers and for assessors. The obtained results revealed that the opinions of the three groups of respondents differed to a certain degree, but were quite similar, eventually. The survey disclosed the existing problems, such as: lack of academic writing (in the native and especially foreign language) and research skills, lack of training in avoiding plagiarism, insufficiently clear university policies in the area, the emphasis on punishment instead of prevention, etc. Based on the obtained results recommendations for universities are given concerning plagiarism policies.