Personas Henry

Connie completed her undergraduate degree in English and English Literature at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She has been involved in English language teaching for nearly 3 years, as a freelance teacher and in helping fellow students with their English skills for study. Her research interests include teacher classroom discourse and formal syntax. She joined her current MA course to receive in-depth training in the study of English language to pursue an academic and teaching career. She was an A grade student but has found her new subject area very challenging and misses the literature side of her studies. She finds some of the content boring and this, as well as living far from her family, affects her motivation.

Born in Lahore, Kumar gained his masters and then his PhD in Education at the Indian Institute of Teacher Education (IITE), Gujarat. He completed post-doctoral research training in education policy at Bristol University before returning to take up an assistant professorship at his current institution. He has over 10 years’ experience supervising masters and PhD students in education. He has a great knowledge of his subject but next to no experience of teaching online. He has no previous experience of finding resources online for his subject.

Students are expected to work to enhance their understanding of applied linguistics research as well as explore the pathways this can open up for language teachers. They select from a range of subject areas and write four major assignments per term. She is expected to attend several lectures per week and 20 hours of timetabled classes. Students also attend one tutorial support session p.w. and are expected to take advantage of language and subject support sessions if they need to improve their grades.

Dr Kumar’s latest post duties (response to COVID-19) involve: Preparing (by selecting, producing and exploiting appropriate online course materials) and teaching students for up to 40 online contact teaching hours per week; from Monday to Thursday; giving online tutorials and completing relevant assessment and attainment records using the university’s online portal; evaluating and giving detailed feedback on students’ written work, as well as attending course management meetings and training sessions.

Her knowledge of English grammar and vocabulary is very good. Connie is a slow writer, even though writing is a major part of the course; she finds it difficult to remember and understand all the linguistic terms. A main requirement for her on any self-study website will be is tips for exam preparation - like how to highlight the key points and how you pick out main points. She needs revision of all the syllabus topics.

He is an expert in his field of education and research, but these are in old-school book research, research methods, research areas and applied research. He is able to ground any student in the fundamentals of educational research and learning theory. However, because it is so broad, he has difficulty keeping up with current research, in addition, his limited IT skills does not give him the access to online resources and apps he needs to remain at the forefront.

Though she is quite confident with friends face to face, she doesn’t have experience of live interaction online with strangers or teachers and she is quite shy normally. She is not sure how she’ll cope with technology if she suffers any such issues on the course. But she does use apps like Zoom and other social networking tools, she hopes this experience will be useful. She knows how to use a computer to a slightly above average level as she uses it for normal study. She’s not sure it will be enough for the course if she cannot understand something and needs to rely on technical help by email or direct instruction.

He can quickly pick up the basics of using apps like Zoom and VLEs incorporating video or audio, is not sure how he’ll cope with technology if he suffers any technical issues on the course. He is good with a computer for creating handouts for classroom teaching; he has some knowledge of how to navigate to and download materials from Moodle, which the university uses as a repository – not so much in his department, and he has some knowledge about uploading these materials or how to ensure they are sharable.

Passing her degree will give her a modicum of freedom and independence in her life she has never experienced and it her final chance after having to repeat her university entrance exams and losing a year of her study to illness. Passing will allow her to pay back her parents, for her tuition and upkeep in 5 years or so. She'd also be much more eligible for marriage – that’s what her parents want for her. In her mind, it is way down the list of priorities.

He really wants to learn how to teach online and find a source of materials online that he can use that could even lead to an improvement on his current course (delivered as blended learning). He needs to find a free online course, designed for someone in his situation, tailored to the subcontinent learning context and has started looking.

She sees herself taking a PhD in the same area and earning a good living teaching English in the US or UK. This would be unthinkable in China, she realises in the UK or US, pursuing this profession gives her much more better pay prospects.

He has targeted gaining experience of accessing and sharing webinars online. He plans to take part in an online course plus one or two workshops on using VLEs and/ or online repositories in teaching and creating online reading materials and sharing weblinks.

Connie is hampered by a very heavy workload and finds it very hard or impossible to reduce it because on the one hand, her work has been set back greatly by COVID-19 and, on the other, the country-wide protests in the country. This is stressful and demotivating for her: 'I really just want to make my life easier...it is very intense’ when she will need to focus if she is to take advantage of opportunities offered by the shift to online. She has good ICT skills, not as good as if she had been encouraged in that direction, as traditionally happens with boys, like her brother who was always encouraged to take up computing. She knows very little about OERs and how they might help her in her studies, where to find them and if they are available in her subject area of EAP and Applied Linginguistics.

As a professor, more is expected of him in terms of workload and different roles he fulfils - not just teaching and research, but also publishing and ambassadorship. It leaves very little time for learning new ICT skills. He only received a couple of days of training before being asked to teach online. He does not see how he will find time to teach while dealing with the backlog of work created by COVID-19. He’s had to pivot quickly to online learning and is very fearful whether he can meet expectations. The university online teaching response to COVID-19 has been chaotic, creating more problems than it has solved (e.g. to morale and confidence the issues can be overcome). Even with adequate training he still won’t be able to reach students who have no or very slow internet access, who constitute about 70%. Just 22 of his 200 students logged into his first remote learning class.

She is determined and resourceful, has very good English - the main language of OERs. She's within a community mainly focussed on learning that shares many of her interests and goals (as opposed to family or work, which can be major distractors). She has financial resources she can call on when she needs to update her skills through additional programs or resources like new equipment.

He learns very quickly; he has extensive pedagogical training (not in online) and he can call upon his colleagues in the virtual learning department of TNOU in Chennai for help if needed and on his extensive professional network. His experience means he's seen just about everything, so he's resilient in a crisis.