Evaluation of distance English language teaching education during COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of ELT student teachers and their instructors

Abstract

Due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic in the world, all institutions of the society have been severely affected. Some of the consequences of this crisis had both positive and negative effects on certain areas. Among these, education is the one that will have the greatest impact on the future. This paper attempted to determine the perspectives of English language teaching student teachers and their instructors on distance education during COVID-19 pandemic. The participants of the study were 40 senior students from the English Language Teaching department and their 4 instructors from a Turkish state university. Both qualitative and quantitative research models were used in this study. Descriptive analysis was used for qualitative data whereas statistical procedure was applied for quantitative data. A questionnaire and semi-structured interview forms were employed as data collection instruments. The results revealed that student teachers and their instructors have both positive and negative opinions about distance English language teaching education during COVID-19 pandemic. One of the most frequently stated problems with distance education refers to student teachers’ experiences of teaching practicum, whereas they had no difficulty in theoretical courses. The positive opinions are regarding time-space flexibility, reviewing lessons by recordings, self-paced learning, affordability, comfort, sharing a wide range of resources, instant feedback, whereas negative opinions are about technical problems, applied courses, lack of social interaction, assessment and evaluation, workload, health problems and low motivation. It is suggested that distance education training for both student teachers and instructors will be useful for future experiences.

Keywords

• distance education
• ELT
• student teachers
• COVID-19