Social and Academic Impacts of CoViD19 - related Emergency Remote Teaching on Japanese University Students

Abstract

This study will detail how a university in Western Japan has implemented its English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program during the onset of CoViD-19. In the spring semester of 2020, after a 2 week delay, all courses within the school’s EAP program The course coordinators were tasked with consolidating the materials originally designed for face-to-face,14 week courses, for a 12 week asynchronous online semester, and with uploading the modified course materials to the university’s Learning Management System (LMS). Twenty one students participated in semi-open interviews to determine the social and academic impacts of this CoViD-19 Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) approach. The lessons learned from this experience will be discussed in terms of future curriculum design and implementation in a post-CoViD world. There are a wide variety of lessons that were salient. The role of the classroom as a social institution was very prominent; however, online asynchronous format. awareness of cognitive burdens and strategies to mitigate them may be more valuable for teachers. The lessons learned during this period of ERT can help teachers moving forward. were offered in an Keywords— asynchronous online learning, emergency remote teaching (ERT), online curriculum design, CoViD19