Online remote language teaching during and beyond the pandemic: echoes from the Anchor University in Lagos

The outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) brought along with it a number of socio-political, public health, administrative, economic, and educational challenges and impacts across the world. Teaching and learning as a critical component of our social existence have been equally impacted with new technologies providing both the tools and affordances for effective virtual learning. This chapter discusses the adoption and application of digital technologies for online teaching and learning at Anchor University, Lagos (AUL), a private tertiary institution in Lagos, Nigeria. The study foregrounds its theoretical principles on Kirkwood and Price’s (2014) perspective on Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) and Herring’s (2004) Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA). The dataset was drawn from Google Classroom’s platform deployed by AUL during the COVID-19 crisis. I used qualitative content-based analysis to discuss how the selected data reflect the reality of TEL during the pandemic. The study argues that the deployment of new technologies for teaching and learning in higher education utilised the existing framework and availability of digital tools and mobile communication networks resulting from the phenomenal development of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) industry in Nigeria. It confirms that the availability of a range of digital technologies and social media platforms has improved the possibilities of adapting to remote learning during the period and beyond. It concludes by highlighting socio-educational benefits of remote teaching and learning and some challenges of teaching language-related courses in Nigeria and other similar cultural contexts.

An immersive Arabic language course in Cairo moves online

This chapter describes the my experience as the instructor for a course rooted in community based learning theory that was forced to move online in spring, 2020, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The course, titled ‘CASA Without Borders’, allows Arabic language students in the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) program at The American University in Cairo (AUC) to leave the university environment and serve the community, while also benefiting from the experience both linguistically and culturally. This course was disrupted by the students’ mandatory return to the US from Cairo as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, and continued remotely in an online format. This chapter describes the CASA program and explains both the purpose of the CASA Without Borders course and its significance to CASA students and to the program. It also describes and reflects upon my experience of continuing the course remotely during the ongoing pandemic.

Tracks for Russian university students’ multilingual development within remote education during the pandemic

The chapter explores language and non-language university students’ practices of foreign language learning within the unscheduled shift to remote studies in Russia due to the COVID-19 emergency. The RUDN University Law Institute experience is considered as an example. The paper explores common and specific features of foreign language, translation, and interpreting skills training within the Law Institute language and non-language programmes. The research rests on the case study methodology, considered from the policy-making and managerial point of view. The findings reveal both common features and specificities of multilingual university education of non-language and language students. The study also confirms the need for the educational institutions to draft specific guidelines on language courses implementation for different target audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sudden shift to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: the case of Arabic at Qatar University

The present chapter focuses on the immediate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the higher education sector, presenting the case of the Arabic for Non-Native Speakers Center (ANNS) at Qatar University. It evaluates what actions the center has undertaken to pledge its integrity to the cause of higher education throughout the pandemic and considers a sample of students’ responses to a survey about the approaches and strategies adopted when learning shifted online. In order to speak to the book project rationale, the questions herein addressed concentrate on what has changed in language teaching practices as a result of COVID-19; on which changes might become permanent changes and which are expected to return to their pre-pandemic conditions; on reconsidered language pedagogy and new educational purposes and on informational progress for remote teaching. The chapter also aims to identify a number of techniques to be researched further.

Teaching Arabic during the pandemic: the remote online classroom

The chapter gives the reader insights of teaching Arabic as a foreign language during the consequences of COVID-19. It tackles the outcomes of the spring and summer semesters in 2020 among students of Ningxia, Aarhus, Copenhagen, Cambridge, and Berlin universities. It sheds light upon the challenges faced by students, teachers, and management and how they are handled. The chapter depends on the collectives of two surveys carried out by the Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL) team. It includes students’ and instructors’ feedback and the means of delivery of Arabic classes amid the pandemic. It also covers the needs of the online classroom in Arabic as a foreign language. It shares language achievements during the pandemic, and recommendations for the future.

Creating communities of practice: The Harvard Language Center’s role in supporting language instruction during the pandemic

When Harvard University moved all instruction into an online modality in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Language Center positioned itself as a critical source of guidance on best practices in this new environment. For Harvard, an institution that has always prioritized face-to-face instruction above all other formats, 2020 has been a watershed moment that has forced faculty to reconsider nearly everything about the way they organize and deliver their courses. Owing to the pandemic crisis, we find ourselves in a moment in which the efficacy of these modalities in language learning is, despite initial concerns, being proven day after day. In the context of this crisis, The Language Center has developed training and support mechanisms for this transition, focusing on desired learning outcomes, centering instructor and student experience, and positioning the language faculty to be able to successfully employ hybrid and online approaches to instruction that will continue to serve them well after the crisis abates. This contribution describes the strategies and actions that The Language Center took to ensure the success of the remote teaching and learning of languages at Harvard University in the first term of the 2020-2021 academic year, after the emergency evacuation of campus in March of 2020, and offers a model for other centers engaged in academic support. While extensive insights on the success of these efforts are still pending, given the timing of this crisis and the interventions undertaken, early feedback suggests that faculty have found provided resources to be useful, and their intention is to adopt aspects of technologically-mediated instruction in their face-to-face teaching going forward.

Reflection on digital language teaching, learning, and assessment in times of crisis: a view from Italy

This chapter is a reflective account of the author’s experience as a teacher of English at the University of Pavia during the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. It considers the design and delivery of an English for architecture and construction engineering course as well as the assessment stage of a text analysis course. It proceeds by presenting and discussing the decisions implemented as a consequence of the crisis situation and reflects on principles of English language teaching, learning, and assessment in general and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in particular. In doing so, it addresses the book project rationale as an opportunity to reflect on the adjustments made to various planning and design factors informing language education during the health crisis and thought to be generalisable to language teaching, learning, and assessment in the global digital world. It concludes with thoughts on what the future of digital language teaching, learning, and assessment could look like.

A blended learning model supported by MOOC/SPOC, Zoom, and Canvas in a project-based academic writing course

Blended learning has played an important role in teaching English as a second or foreign language around the world. However, little research has been conducted on blended learning that is entirely online owing to the coronavirus pandemic. We aim at exploring the model of blending Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and Small Private Online Courses (SPOC), Zoom conferencing, and the Canvas course management platform. The new approach of blended online learning incorporates the pre-class autonomous learning of knowledge in MOOC/SPOC, in-class internalization of knowledge through case studies and discussions on Zoom, and after-class application of knowledge to the completion of a research project. A questionnaire and interviews were conducted to explore learners’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the model. Learners have a positive attitude about the new approach of blended online learning, but still hope that the in-class activities can be implemented face-to-face offline. The model will contribute to teaching and learning with the blended approach against the current coronavirus pandemic.

The response of the University of Isfahan to COVID-19: remote online language teaching

This study describes the changes in the instructional system experienced by the language departments in the University of Isfahan, Iran, during the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak and the consequent national lockdown. After providing a very brief scenario of a regular academic year in higher education in Iran, this chapter focuses on the changes made to the instructional system in response to this world-wide pandemic and the non-academic measures taken across the university in general and language departments in particular. After pointing to some challenges of online instruction, the advantages and disadvantages of remote instruction with regard to the four language skills from both teachers’ and students’ perspectives will be discussed. A review of the assessment procedures in the platform used by the University of Isfahan will then be provided. This case study will come to an end by providing some outlook for the future.

COVID-19-driven sudden shift to remote teaching: the case of the Languages for the Community Program at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral

The Languages for the Community Program (LCP), one of the units that make up the Language Center at Universidad Nacional del Litoral (UNL), Santa Fe, República Argentina, is an extension service provided to people 17 years of age and older that live in Santa Fe or in neighboring towns, and to UNL students wishing to take language courses other than those offered in their own study programs. Since 1999 when they started, these language courses have been taught in a traditional face-to-face modality. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the way in which the first term in 2020 had to suddenly shift to remote teaching and how this shift was devised, coordinated, delivered, and evaluated in response to the unexpected context provoked by the outbreak of COVID-19. The chapter also reports the changes implemented during the second term according to the results of a satisfaction survey administered to students. Collaborative work, previous expertise, and methodological principles allowed the staff at LCP to offer a quality educational response to this paradigm shift in foreign language teaching and learning.