Below is the proposed table of content with chapter summaries. If you click on the hyperlink in the title, it will take you to a video summarizing that chapter.
Chapter 1: Working through Crises
Senta Goertler (Michigan State University) and Jesse Gleason (Southern Connecticut State University)
The present volume focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of a crisis and the technological response to the crisis, which often involved moving instruction partially or fully online. In this first chapter, we highlight how the COVID-19 crisis forced educational institutions to quickly adjust to new ways of doing their work. In the months and years following March 2020, and we give an overview of multiple adjustments were made and refined that could have long-term implications for language learning and teaching. The chapter discusses the making of the book, including the four-fold motivation behind its creation, and four guiding values, four main parts, and four broad guiding questions. We then summarize each of the main chapters in the volume, focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of a crisis and the technological response to the crisis, which often involved moving instruction partially or fully online. Lastly, and in order to help orient readers toward those particular chapters that might be of most relevace for their own work, we showcase a quick-reference table with each of the chapters, authors, contexts, languages and perspectives.Part 1: Emergency Response
Li Jin (De Paul University), Yi Xu (University of Pittsburgh), and Elizabeth Deifell (Appalachian State University)
This chapter reports on findings of a mixed-methods study (n = 309) investigating changes in college-level world language educators’ technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) and attitudes toward online language teaching after more than one year of remote language teaching. The focus was on whether and how world language educators' remote teaching experience and online teaching-related training they received since the pandemic outbreak affected the changes. The participants’ self-reported technological content knowledge (TCK), technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK), and TPACK increased statistically significantly since the pandemic outbreak. Regardless of the participants’ training status, their TPACK increased significantly. However, only those who received training increased their TCK and TPK from pre-pandemic times to Fall, 2021. Compared to the pre-pandemic times, the participants also experienced more significant changes in terms of their acceptance of technology integration in face-to-face (F2F) teaching, as opposed to acceptance of adopting 100% online teaching and of hybrid teaching. In addition, training only significantly shaped the participants’ attitudinal changes toward adopting hybrid language teaching. This shows prolonged remote teaching experience and training provided to world language educators during the pandemic played different roles in shaping their knowledge of and attitudes toward online language teaching. Based on the findings, practical suggestions are offered as to how to provide world language educators more effective and sustainable training in online language teaching and a supportive environment for online teaching.Roshni Gokool and Shamila Naidoo (University of KwaZulu Natal)
The South African higher education landscape has been characterised by student protest and disruption since 2015. These recurring crises resulted in the introduction of technology-mediated initiatives pre-COVID. This chapter focuses on Basic isiZulu, an L2 module, compulsory for all non-L1 speakers of isiZulu. It provides an overview of student engagement with online formative assessments, determining firstly, the levels of student engagement pre- and intra-pandemic, and secondly, determining if there was improvement in engagement during the three years of fully online teaching and learning.In this quantitative study, the MOODLE learning analytics data is used to offer a longitudinal report on student engagement with selected online formative assessments in 12 semesters. A statistical analysis of the learning analytics data yields interesting results. The percentage of students who engaged with OFAs was low across the six years. There was no significant difference in the percentage of students who engaged with OFAs pre-pandemic and during the ERT period. And, incentivization encourages engagement. These findings present a critical revelation for the instructors and call for a review of the pedagogical strategies used in the Basic isiZulu module.Giovanni Zimotti (University of Iowa) and Alyssia Miller De Rutté (Colorado State University)
The COVID-19 pandemic caused instructors around the world to shift their courses online as a temporary solution to teaching. This shift in teaching modality is known as Emergency Response Teaching and Learning (ERTL), which is defined as a temporary shift in the mode of instruction due to an emergency and as a shift that requires problem-solving and thinking outside the box (Hodges et al., 2020). ERTL solutions are typically meant to be short-term in nature, but many innovations created during the pandemic have shown potential to become permanent teaching strategies (González-Lloret et al., 2021). This chapter discusses an emergency teaching innovation, developed during campuswide lockdown, which was adopted after the return to traditional teaching modalities and has become a regular component of the courses involved. The specific innovation was the development of virtual reality (VR) simulations for courses relating to medical Spanish.Chapter 5: The Future of Language Education in the Light of COVID: A European Survey Project on Lessons Learned and Ways Forward.
Bernd Rüschoff (University of Duisburg-Essen)
This chapter reports on and discusses the results of a major pan-European survey project conducted under the auspices of the Council of Europe’s ECML (European Centre for Modern Languages) and the European Commission. The project aimed at finding out how institutions, language teachers and also learners had responded to the challenges presented by successive lockdowns, social distancing, and remote emergency teaching during the COVID pandemic. The surveys also reflected on how language teaching methodologies as well as the use of digital tools and technology skills might evolve in the future, as the main aim of the initiative was not to simply record how the pandemic has affected language education, but rather to explore ways in which the skills and insights gained by both teachers and learners may bring about beneficial lasting changes in the teaching and learning of languages. Over 1700 teaching professionals from 40 countries, working at different educational levels, responded to the first part of the survey in 2021. The 2022 follow-up survey then focused on collecting the learners‘ voices, with some 1.500 learners sharing their experiences and opinions in great detail. Responses to both surveys paint a clear and rich picture of ways in which teachers and learners have coped with and confronted the challenges. In addition, the results provide insights into some of the positive changes in language teaching that the pandemic has generated. The chapter reports on the survey’s methodology and its results and also highlights some of the issues that have been raised to inform the debate on the kind of changes in teaching methodology, classroom practice, and teacher professionalization that may be impacted and initiated by teachers’ and learners’ experiences during full and partial lockdowns.Chapter 6: Post-Pandemic Language Teaching: Language Instructors’ Technology Integration Practices.
Luca Giupponi (Michigan State University), Bethany Zulick (University of Montana), and Emily Heidrich Uebel (Michigan State University)
This study investigates patterns of technology integration practices of post-secondary language instructors as they return to in-person instruction after Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT). During the pandemic, language educators had to embrace a variety of novel educational technology tools and approaches to deliver their courses remotely. By looking at whether instructors go back to their previous teaching practices, or whether their experiences with technology-mediated instruction push them towards the integration of new technologies and approaches, we can gain insights into how extraordinary events like the pandemic impact the diffusion of adoption of learning technologies. Study participants consisted of post-secondary language instructors from a number of US universities. This study utilizes Rogers’ (2003) Perceived Characteristics of Innovations (PCIs) to investigate individual language teachers’ technology integration practices and processes. An initial survey to measure Rogers’ (2003) PCIs was adapted from a validated instrument designed by Moore and Benbasat (1991). Participant interviews were transcribed and analyzed utilizing thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The pandemic was a deeply transformative experience for study participants. As they sought to ensure teaching continuity during ERT, they gravitated towards tools and approaches that were compatible with their student needs, had a demonstrably positive impact, and improved some aspect of teaching and learning compared to their pre-pandemic situation. Engaging in these innovative practices, over time, resulted in a renewed focus on the student experience, a realignment with present-day uses of digital communication and interaction, an embracing of asynchronous interactions, and overall professional advancement for these instructors.Claudia Sánchez-Gutiérrez (University of California, Davis), Ana Ortega Pérez (University of California, Davis), Ana Ruiz Alonso Bartol (University of California, Davis), Paloma Fernández Mira (University of California, Davis), Diane Querrien (Concordia University), and Shelley Dykstra (University of California, Davis)
While online teaching was becoming more prominent in some countries such as the United States. (Seaman et al., 2018), it was not the main format of instruction in most educational settings when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The sudden shift to Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL) caught educators worldwide by surprise, forcing them to teach online in stressful circumstances, often without prior training or experience (Zamborová et al., 2021). Several articles have documented teachers’ experiences during the first few months of the pandemic, as they rapidly had to adjust to a new educational format in a global context of uncertainty and fear (Gao & Zhang, 2020; MacIntyre et al., 2020; Moser et al., 2021). Others also investigated teachers’ uses of technologies post-ERTL (Gruber et al., 2023). Most of the literature has thus studied teachers’ beliefs and practices either at the beginning of the ERTL or in the “new-normal” era, but none, to the best of our knowledge, has looked at individual teachers’ evolution throughout the period that connects the pre- and post-ERTL. This chapter aims to address this gap by offering a longitudinal perspective on individual instructors’ experiences over time in a Spanish language program at a large public university in the United States. Six instructors were surveyed and interviewed at three key moments of the (post-)ERTL. In May 2020, they completed a questionnaire about their experience during the first two months of the ERTL. In November 2020, they participated in a first semi-structured interview that looked into their beliefs about online teaching as they had already used this format for a few months and knew that they would continue teaching this way for the 2020-2021 academic year. Finally, in November 2021, they participated in a second semi-structured interview as the university started offering almost all courses in person again.Jill Landry and Marie-Josée Hamel (University of Ottawa)
This chapter considers the forced professionalization of language teachers during emergency remote teaching (ERT; Jin et al., 2022; Moser et al., 2020) by examining how teachers developed the digital competencies (Hampel & Stikler, 2015) required to move and keep their classes online. We present a study, including three case studies, conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic in which ten experienced French-language teachers from six universities in two countries were interviewed about the changes to their digital practices from the early days of ERT until October 2021. We found that language teachers can be placed on a continuum of digital competencies, from less experienced to more experienced, and can be viewed as three groups: Traditional, On the move, and Tech-inclined. We propose a model to describe an ERT online class that can also be implemented as a procedure for language teachers’ self-reflection, and take the view of professional didactics (Pastré, 1999; Piot, 2012) to propose that stakeholders’ revise their policies to consider teachers’ own efforts at professional development through trial-and-error; a viewpoint that considers the individuality of teachers as people and their own ways of learning new digital competencies.Jesse Gleason and Andrew Bartlett (Southern Connecticut State University)
With the return to a “new normal” (Egbert, 2020) post-pandemic, many questions remain, including about how the pandemic impacted student language proficiency (Moser et al., 2021). The current chapter explores the impact of changes brought about by the 2020 pandemic on student language proficiency, particularly the swift move to online language learning during Emergency Remote Language Teaching (ERLT) and our subsequent return to various course modalities post-pandemic, including traditional, blended/hybrid, and online courses. While pre-pandemic research has consistently found there to be little or no significant differences in terms of how modality impacts student proficiency (Aldrich & Moneypenny, 2019; Blake et al., 2008; Grgurović, et al., 2013), recent research on ERLT during the pandemic has shown mixed results. Authors (in press), for example, found that students forced to take their general Spanish courses online during the pandemic scored significantly higher on the STAMP test of language proficiency in three out of four skills–reading, listening and speaking (writing remained constant)–than those in the same courses offered solely face-to-face (F2F) pre-pandemic. We were curious to see if this trend would continue in the semesters immediately following ERLT, whence courses were simultaneously offered in both F2F/hybrid and online modalities. This chapter follows up on Authors (in press) findings by examining proficiency results in online and F2F courses during the 2021-22 academic year (AY), comparing them to F2F-only courses pre-pandemic, and online-only ERLT courses during the pandemic. Findings revealed significant proficiency gains among students in the post-pandemic F2F courses across three skills (reading, writing and speaking) as well as overall, compared to the online students as well as a much higher variability among students in the online courses. Additionally, both post-pandemic modality groups outperformed forced on-ground pre-pandemic students and underperformed forced-online ERLT students. These findings build upon our understanding of the impact of the pandemic on student language proficiency as we move forward into a new normal.Elizabeth Lavolette and Mayumi Asaba (Kyoto Sangyo University)
Universities around the world have taken different approaches to educational continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the authors’ university in Japan, the administration designated which classes would be delivered asynchronously during the first two years of the pandemic. The change affected two English-medium content courses that the authors taught. The authors developed asynchronous content, considering this change an opportunity to create materials that could also be used for flipped learning when they returned to face-to-face classes, which happened in the 2022 academic year.Regardless of the advantages flipped classes have for learning, such as improved language skills, student satisfaction, achievement of learning outcomes, student engagement, and time for practice (e.g., Bener, 2021), this model of teaching is relatively rare in Japan. Therefore, the authors investigated the flipped classes to understand how students perceived and interacted with the homework and in-class elements and how they perceived their learning outcomes. Furthermore, the authors examined how the different approaches that each instructor took in implementing flipped learning affected students’ perceptions of and interactions with this teaching model. A total of 42 undergraduate foreign language majors at a Japanese university participated in the research. Based on questionnaires completed throughout the semester and a focus group interview, the authors concluded that students’ overall experience with flipped learning was positive. First, students in both classes perceived the videos to be generally easy to understand, even though the amount of time spent on homework differed between the two courses. Second, students perceived talking to classmates and the chance to learn new ideas as positive aspects of in-class work. Finally, their reported learning outcomes in the questionnaires indicated that they remembered topics that they learned about, rather than facts or ideas. However, the focus group interview data revealed that what students learned had a deeper impact. Kimberly Morris (University of Wisconsin, La Crosse), Mikaela Robarge (University of Wisconsin, La Crosse), and Pablo Robles-García (University of Toronto)
Second language (L2) classrooms were radically impacted by COVID-19 due to the absence of face-to-face (F2F) opportunities for interaction and negotiation of meaning in the target language, essential facets of second language acquisition (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Long, 1996). The abrupt transition to emergency remote teaching (ERT) required students and teachers to reconceptualize what successful L2 learning looked like in an online environment, oftentimes with little training (Morris, 2022). Because students’ perceptions of teaching practices can impact their L2 development and success (Kern, 1995), it is crucial to examine their L2 learning experiences during the pandemic. This study explored the perceptions of 122 university L2 students regarding the effectiveness of different modalities and teaching strategies along with other factors such as workload, effort, and participation in language classes. Analyses of an online survey distributed in spring 2021 indicated that students perceived online synchronous instruction as highly effective due to the active engagement and collaboration it afforded from a distance. Perceptions regarding students’ workload, effort, and participation were largely the same compared to traditional F2F classes pre-pandemic, thus confirming a successful transition to ERT. Nevertheless, students’ motivation decreased due to limited interactions, whereas issues with technology and social distancing further impeded their success. Conversely, many students described their language learning during the pandemic as unique, effective, and even fun, thus highlighting the duality of this experience and the many lessons learned about new ways to engage in the L2 that go beyond traditional classroom walls. This expanded repertoire will impact how languages are taught and learned as we move beyond the pandemic. Consequently, language teachers should not simply revert to pre-pandemic methods. Instead, we must advocate for continued professional development and normalize computer-assisted language learning not only during a time of crisis, but rather as an essential part of the curriculum.Chantelle Warner and Wenhao Diao (University of Arizona)
This chapter investigates language teachers’ emotions about technology and their perceptions of their emotion labor through technology in remote language teaching. The sudden switch to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to many publications about technology in language teaching. Their findings illuminate the importance of teachers’ affect (e.g., Li et al., 2021). The current chapter expands on these discussions by focusing on teachers’ emotion and emotion labor while teaching remotely. A concept originated in sociological inquiries, emotion labor refers to the work of regulating the feelings of both one’s own and others. It has been borrowed into applied linguistic research to capture the centrality of affect in language education (e.g., Miller & Gkonou, 2018). However, remote teaching brings pressing questions about emotion labor, as technology presents different modes and modalities for mitigating feelings. This study included 19 teachers of six languages from postsecondary institutions across the U.S. Each of them was interviewed twice. Using appraisal theory (Martin & White, 2005), our analysis focused on the affective attitudes construed in the teachers’ interview discourse. The findings are organized based on two types of technologies – 1) Zoom, and 2) social media platforms. The teachers described Zoom as a platform to connect to their students and conduct the work of care. However, the physical distance made it sometimes impossible to engage in embodied emotion labor, thus leading to feelings of disconnection simultaneously. Social media were used to encourage informal opportunities for target language use. Yet several teachers experienced the dilemma of not being able to be “off” work, while others reported that the students disengaged in these out-of-class use of social media because the platforms are emotionally not associated with learning. These findings highlight the need to incorporate affect in research and professional dialogues about technology in language education.Marta Tecedor (Arizona State University) and Inmaculada Gómez Soler (Dublin City University)
This chapter provides a snapshot of what it meant for language teachers to transition to online teaching during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly, our study delves into teachers’ attitudes towards online teaching and determines which factors predict such attitudes. Data from 308 language teachers in 43 countries was collected via a survey. A Latent Class Analysis classified participants into three groups according to their attitude: Negative Attitude (n=97); Neutral Attitude (n=145); and Positive Attitude (n=66). Also, the variables Teaching experience, Training during the pandemic, and the interaction between Institution and Training before the pandemic were predictors in the model. These translates in the following trends: (i) teachers with more than 15 years of experience had a higher probability of belonging to the Negative Attitude Class, (ii) Teachers who received training during the pandemic had a higher probability of belonging to the Neutral Class, while those who did not receive training were most likely categorized in the Negative Class, and (iii) Teachers in primary and secondary schools had less positive attitudes than those in language schools and tertiary institutions. Additionally, we explored the content of the training received during the pandemic and the challenges experienced during this time. The results revealed that training focused primarily on low-level skills (i.e., technical competence) and that the areas that set participants apart related to the management of online sessions and motivating students, both of which were reported by a higher percentage of participants in the Positive Attitude group. Regarding challenges, participants reported difficulties motivating students, designing effective activities, and encouraging students to talk during synchronous sessions. The triangulation of these data sources allows us to identify areas in the training that should be emphasized to make training more effective and sustainable, even in moments of crisis.Elena Schmitt and Anastasia Sorokina (Southern Connecticut State University)
During the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education institutions experienced a rapid shift from face-to-face (F2F) classes to emergency online instruction, which later evolved into planned online education (Gacs, Goertler & Spasova, 2020). As the initial crisis subsided, some universities reintroduced in-person instruction, while others opted to continue offering online or hybrid models. This transition posed challenges for programs as they navigated the changes and sought to engage students in meaningful learning experiences (Mallibhat & Iyer, 2022). In the context of a Master's in TESOL program at a U.S. state university, a comprehensive study was conducted on its journey from F2F to fully online and subsequently to hybrid programming during the pandemic. This chapter focuses on the program's transitional phases and explores the outcomes of learning and teaching across different modalities, encompassing students' academic success, perceptions, levels of interaction, and factors influencing their choice of modality. The analysis is based on three years of data spanning from 2020 to 2023. The implications drawn from these findings contribute to shaping the program's future development.Chapter 15: Crisis Response and Crisis Preparedness: Moving Forward
Senta Goertler and Jesse Gleason
In this concluding chapter, we document the COVID-19 context, summarize research on Emergency Remote Language Teaching (ERTL), share lessons learned, and make recommendations for designing the new normal. Furthermore, we draw from the chapters in this book and move beyond them to define lessons forward for language learning and teaching. The COVID-19 pandemic provoked change and it is impossible to go back to normal or to the “before times.” We therefore advocate to use the ERTL lessons to move forward and negotiate our new normal in an iterative and collaborative process by being honest about the challenges and the inequities; by continuing to advance innovations that show potential through evidence-based iterative development processes; and by seeking answers to the new questions to establish sustainable and just language education. Undoubtedly, technology will play a variety of roles in this process. We must continue to reduce barriers in language education and argue for its central role in student success and belonging within our shared commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.