Emergency online learning during the first Covid-19 period: students’ perspectives from Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Poland and Turkey

Abstract

In spring 2020 both teachers and learners experienced the interruption of education as it had been established for over 150 years and seemed to be unchangeable. The paper focuses on students’ perspectives on how they perceive the changes in learning due to the pandemic educational emergency response based on the results of a survey of students in four countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Poland and Turkey. We aim at discussing the data collected at the end of the 2019-2020 Spring semester. The research focuses on the accessibility of the tools for learning, modes of instruction, as well as interaction patterns. In addition, we present students’ opinions on the difficulties they experienced, the learning strategies they adopted and what aspects of online learning should remain as a regular educational practice after the pandemic period.

CALL and professionalisation: short papers from EUROCALL 2021

“…Differently from some other studies (cf. Miloshevska et al, 2020) arguing that online teaching was overwhelmed with different problems, our findings show that:…”

Crowdsourcing and language learning habits and practices in Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of North Macedonia and Poland in the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods

“…The tested hypothesis was that there had been a significant change in both teaching and learning habits in the pre-and pandemic periods, and that crowdsourcing platforms gained popularity during the COV-ID-19 period. This hypothesis was based on the findings of a study (Miloshevska et al, 2020) showing that teachers in B&H, NM, POL and TUR, similarly to their colleagues around the world, were forced to use almost all the digital tools they had at their disposal at this difficult time, especially during the emergency online teaching period in the Spring 2020 semester. At the same time, language learners were forced to independently use different crowdsourcing tools and platforms to catch up with the requirements of their institutions.…”

“…These were, however, implementations in a limited number of places or in periods that were carefully planned and followed welldesigned stages and procedures. The rest of the education, the vast bulk of it, both around the world and in TUR, B&H, RNM and POL was done face-to-face (Miloshevska et al, 2020).…”

“…Unfortunately, many of the changes were done randomly or opportunistically, without being aware of and, therefore, not following any of the established Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) models (Bax, 2003;Hampel and Stickler, 2005). Students also had to adjust to the new, mainly solitary online environment where they were deprived of social contact with their peers and teachers, and could not expect constant support from their institutions (Miloshevska et al, 2020;Trung et al, 2020).…”

“…This study was conducted to find out whether there have been any changes related to the use of crowdsourcing materials for language learning and teaching purposes (e.g., sources such as Wikipedia, Duolingo, Kahoot, Online dictionaries, social media sites) in TUR, B&H, RNM and POL during the different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic (for more detailed examples and explanations, see the Literature Review section). These four countries were selected as focal points since some previous studies (Delibegović Džanić et al, in press;Miloshevska et al, 2020Miloshevska et al, , 2021 showed that the national ministries of education and the university administrations planned and organized instruction in K-12 and tertiary levels differently. The expectations and requirements from students were also somewhat different in these countries.…”