Challenges and Difficulties Encountered by Undergraduate EFL Learners in Online Classes during Covid-19 Era: A Case Study in Kurdistan Universities

Abstract

The widespread COVID-19 pandemic has affected all fields of life including education. Almost all the countries were obliged to close the doors of schools and institutions and alternatively use online teaching. The students, during the COVID-19 era, came across many difficulties and challenges that affected their performance dramatically. The current study aims to find out the difficulties and challenges encountered by Kurdish EFL learners in the universities of Charmo, Sulaimaniya, and Salahaddin in Kurdistan of Iraq. The mixed-Methods approach has been used to gather the data that included questionnaires and interviews. 110 students participated in the Likert-scale questionnaire and 9 instructors participated in the online interviews; they were all from the three universities mentioned above. The results showed that the main difficulties are the lack/shortage of good high-speed internet connections, internet instability, electricity power going off frequently on daily basis, not being trained, and being skilful enough to use the technological tools required effectively. Additionally, the instructors also encountered all the difficulties mentioned; plus, they were also considered as another source of the difficulty. The instructors were viewed by the students as not being trained, skilful, and prepared to teach through online classes successfully. They were also accused of not motivating, engaging, monitoring, and assessing the students properly due to their unskillfulness on how to teach online efficiently. Additionally, family"s underestimation of online classes and students" not having spare rooms for online studies are also considered as other problems hindering online learning. The study ends with the conclusion and findings of the study.