Introduction: Self-Access and the Coronavirus Pandemic

Abstract

Welcome to the special issue on self-access and the coronavirus pandemic. When we first had the idea to compile this special issue back in March 2020, we did so, not knowing how the year would pan out. Some parts of the world had already been severely impacted by the coronavirus, but others hardly touched. Many students and academics in various countries were waiting for leaders in their institutions to make decisions about how classes and academic support would be offered. We assumed that we would not be able to run our self-access centres as usual and were beginning to think of ways we could adapt our services. Being in unchartered waters, we were genuinely looking for ideas about how to proceed and how to keep supporting students in these unprecedented times. Self-access practitioners tend to be trailblazers by nature (Mynard, 2019), but this was indeed a challenge for all of us. However, as you will see in the various contributions in this special issue, this turbulent time gave us a chance to innovate and overcome many of the challenges. The call for papers resulted in contributions from around the world and one of the most international issues of SiSAL Journal to date. We are grateful to the authors and reviewers for their contributions to this special issue, and also to the two other members of our editorial team: Metin Esen from Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Turkey and Gao Lixiang, a PhD candidate in language education from Northeast Normal University, China. Acknowledgements also go to Robert Werner, the Associate Editor of SiSAL Journal, for his advice and careful copyediting.