Due to the chaos and confusion caused by the sudden transition from face-to-face teaching to online and remote teaching in early 2020, numerous language teachers had no choice but to rely on online communities on social networking sites. The current study therefore examined how some language teachers were utilising online communities on Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing a mixed-methods approach, data were mainly collected through: (1) an eight-month observation of a technology-focused language teacher community on Facebook to identify different types of posts generated by its members before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 340); (2) a questionnaire to understand the community members’ backgrounds and experiences of being in the community (n = 51); (3) semi-structured interviews with some of the questionnaire participants (n = 13); and (4) a post-interview questionnaire (n = 12) to get a better understanding of their responses. A content analysis of online posts and community members’ responses suggest that language teacher communities on Facebook were supporting teachers during the stressful periods of the pandemic professionally and emotionally. The main findings are discussed in terms of the benefits and drawbacks of using online language teacher communities for professional purposes. The overall goal of the study is to offer much-needed answers on how pre-existing communities can be used to assist language teachers in times of a crisis.

Due to the worldwide spread and diversification of English, there is far more variety in English accents than ever before. Nonetheless, most Japanese English language learners have continuously been only exposed to “native” English accents, particularly Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA), in their English language classrooms. As the number of “non-native” English speakers exceeds the number of “native” English speakers in the world, it has been recently questioned whether exposing English language learners to only “native” English accents in English language classrooms is appropriate in this globalised world. The present study attempts to investigate 78 Japanese EFL learners’ perceptions of different accents in spoken English. More specifically, the study examines the influence of “native” and “non-native” English accents on Japanese EFL learners’ perceptions of grammaticality. Four “native” English speakers (i.e., the UK, the US, and Australia) and four “non-native” English speakers (i.e., Vietnam, Japan, Zimbabwe, and Russia) provided the speech samples used in the study. To measure the Japanese EFL learners’ perceptions of grammaticality, they were asked to listen to thirty-two grammatical and ungrammatical sentences read out by the eight speakers and judge each sentence using binary categories (i.e., grammatical/ungrammatical). Moreover, they were asked to identify the place of origins of each speaker and label them as either “native” speaker or “non-native” speaker. The potential underlying factors influencing their judgements and evaluations are discussed, and the implications for research and teaching are also suggested.

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The importance of educating language teachers to develop their competence in using technology for teaching purposes has been well established in the literature, but the reality is that many teachers around the world have been forced to educate themselves with little or no formal training. The Internet has opened up opportunities for individuals from all over the world to learn. With the use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs), language teachers are now able to connect with other like-minded teachers and support each other regardless of their geographic location and/or financial situation. Despite the increased number of online language teacher communities forming on these platforms, much remains unknown when it comes to how language teachers actually make use of such communities to learn about technology. Hence, the current mixed-methods longitudinal study investigated the role of online communities on SNSs for supporting language teachers who are using technology in their classes. The main data collection methods employed in the study were: (1) a content analysis of the posts shared in a Facebook community which consists of over 1000 online community members during the two-year observation period (i.e., October 2018 – September 2020), a questionnaire to understand the members’ backgrounds and experiences in the community, and semi-structured interviews with the questionnaire respondents to obtain an in-depth understanding of their views about being a community member. The findings will be discussed in terms of the benefits and issues of using Facebook communities as a source of professional and emotional support.