Teachers' perceptions on teacher effectiveness in remote foreign language teaching and learning

Abstract

This qualitative case study presents two on-site English teachers’ and two remote English teachers’ perspectives of a remote English teaching project on teacher effectiveness carried out in two public bilingual schools in western Kazakhstan. The study aimed to explore how remote foreign language teaching and learning in public schools in a developing country enhances teacher effectiveness. Three major results of the study show that: a) remote foreign language teaching challenges on-site and remote foreign language teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge; b) remote foreign language teaching calls for teacher technology change to foster teacher effectiveness; c) remote foreign language teaching and learning via videoconferencing empowers teachers to voice and shifts teaching and learning paradigm. Implications of these findings suggest that teacher education programs at different levels need to support teachers and schools in offering progressive teaching approaches developed for virtual learning environments. Schools and teachers need to bolster research-based models of team teaching in virtual learning environments.

Keywords

• remote foreign language teaching and learning
• teacher effectiveness
• pedagogical content knowledge