EFL teachers’ online teaching in rural schools during the COVID-19 pandemic: Stories from Indonesia

Abstract

The implementation of online English instruction in remote areas during the COVID-19 pandemic, which mandates school closures, remains unknown, especially given these areas’ reputation for inadequate educational facilities. Additionally, the preparations, implementation, and challenges experienced by English as a Foreign Language (henceforth, EFL) teachers in rural areas remain unclear. This study therefore aimed at exploring the experiences of EFL teachers in rural areas on (1) their readiness for conducting online teaching, (2) their implementation of online teaching, and (3) the challenges during the implementation of online teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was conducted in Indonesia with eight English teachers in rural schools. This study was a qualitative study that employed a phenomenological study approach and used semi-structured interviews to collect the data. The findings indicate that EFL teachers, during this pandemic time, were able to conduct fully online English teaching because they possessed sufficient knowledge of English instruction using technology. Additionally, these teachers might leverage various technologies and adapt those tools to transform their usual face-to-face English instruction into online instruction. Nonetheless, these teachers in rural schools frequently encountered challenges with internet connectivity, student-owned technology devices, student enthusiasm, and student netiquette when enrolling in online English teaching. Additionally, this article discusses some practical considerations for implementing online English teaching during a pandemic.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Technology-Based Foreign Language Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Direction for Indonesia Language Learning

“…Chen et al [31] also reported that during the period of 2000 -2021, the documents of researches about the technology-enhanced language learning have been fluctuately cited. The number of citations to the documents will go up in the future because the studies about technology-based foreign language learning during COVID-19 are the trending topic in educational research [18], [47], [48].…”

“…Hereinafter, there were several keywords interpreting foreign language studied in the documents related to technology-based foreign language learning during the COVID-19 pandemic such as "English for academic purpose", "English language", "EFL", and "English as a foreign language". It shows that English was the most familiar language studied as a research topic in the COVID-19 outbreak in which some researchers focused their topic on the English language [18], [47], [64], [65], although some other foreign languages were also studied as a research topic such as Chinese [14], Japanese [11], Russian [9], and Arabic [12]. In addition, there were some keywords interpreting measured skills or abilities in the foreign language learning such as "communication skills" and "digital literacy".…”

“…In implementing it, however, there are barriers, especially for teachers and students who live in rural areas because both teacher and student must have sufficient technical support. Kusuma [18] reported that some barriers such as internet connectivity and student-owned technology device were fought off by rural teachers in teaching English learning. In addition, they should have sufficient digital literacy skills to hold online language learning.…”

“…Moreover, Lie et al [17] revealed that writing and speaking are active skills. As a consequence, to facilitate students in enhancing their speaking and writing skills especially, the implementation of Indonesia language learning performed should be interactive in which the use of technology as an interactive learning media and the involvement of the interactive learning approach or model is required [13], [18]. Therefore, some recommendations related to interactive learning technologies from several studies which have been carried out by many researchers regarding technology-based foreign language learning are extremely needed for teaching the Indonesian language.…”

EFL secondary school teachers’ conceptions of online assessment in emergency remote teaching: A phenomenographic study

“…Therefore, the ultimate objective of ERT is not to re-design a fixed instruction. Instead, it is a dynamic instructional design, as a response to crisis circumstances, that is possibly adjusted and contextualized based on the socio-cultural conditions, online readiness, and many other factors (Cahyadi, Hendryadi, Widyastuti, & Suryani, 2021;Kusuma, 2022;Luthfiyyah et al, 2021).…”