Emergency remote teaching of English as a foreign language during COVID-19: Perspectives from a university in China

Abstract

Given the circumstances of the global pandemic, universities around China and across the globe have suspended face to face (F2F) classes and transitioned to emergency remote teaching (ERT). University students in China have been the first to go through the whole semester’s ERT including College English, a compulsory language course for almost all the first- and second-year students of non-English majors. This article adopted a mixed-methods design, a survey followed by a qualitative visual method, gathered data on students’ experience about ERT of College English and presented an investigation into detailed interactive process of the classes. The data analysis on the learners’ engagement and the feedback from the learners provided a summary of the key threads of ERT classes. This study demonstrated that students held an extrinsic goal orientation, which did not differ from their face-to-face learning experience. ERT granted students more opportunities for interaction with their instructor and peers, while collaboration among students were limited. The research results can be connected to the larger fabric of global language teaching in crisis context, provide empirical lessons to educators, and help instructors with their future decision-making about technology-supported activities.

Tertiary Students’ Perspectives on Online Learning During Emergency Remote Teaching in the Context of Covid-19: A Case Study

“…Noticeably, this finding is vividly in agreement with the one claimed by [25]. In their paper, they used a mixed explanatory method with an online survey on students from a university in China.…”

Aci̇l Uzaktan Yabanci Di̇l Eği̇ti̇mi̇ni̇n Değerlendi̇ri̇lmesi̇: İngi̇li̇z Di̇li̇ Eği̇ti̇mi̇ Öğrenci̇leri̇ni̇n Bakiş Açilari

“…was mainly extrinsically or instrumentally driven. Although this finding may seem to contradict with the findings of this study, the participants of the current study did their homework because of the necessity or to pass the exams as in the study of Huang, Shi and Yang (2020). In a similar vein, in option was found to be the second barrier preventing the effectiveness of distance education.…”

A Case Study of ESL Students’ Remote Speaking Class Learning Experiences in a Canada University During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…In China, the instructors used platforms specifically for learning, such as Rain Classroom. However, this platform was designed for mobile-assisted physical classrooms (Huang et al, 2021). Those comparisons are evidence of good preparation of formal learning technologies in this university.…”

“…English learners' perspectives of online language learning during the time of COVID-19 can also be found in several studies. For instance, in a study by Huang et al (2021), researchers investigated students' engagement in College English classes in China.…”

“…Researchers regarded online learning since the outbreak of COVID-19 as temporary access to learning and a replacement of physical classes. Existing research has investigated students' overall experiences of online education Dhawan, 2020;Mohmmed et al, 2020;Shim & Lee, 2020;Sun et al, 2020) or in several English specific contexts, such as EFL studies in China (Huang et al, 2021) and ESL in Indonesia (Kholis, 2020). However, there are limited reports on ESL students' engagement in speaking classes in Canada.…”