Remote Teaching amid the Covid-19 Pandemic in Vietnam: Primary School EFL Teachers’ Practices and Perceptions
Keywords:
remote teaching, perceptions, challenges, primary school teachers, pandemicAbstract
The massive school closures worldwide due to the Covid-19 pandemic have resulted in a surge of remote teaching. This study investigated teachers' practices and perceptions on teaching English remotely to primary school students in the school lockdowns in Vietnam. A mixed-methods design was employed to collect data from different primary public schools in Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted, and a questionnaire was used to collect data from 50 teachers. The majority of selected participants were those who practiced at least one form of remote teaching activities, either asynchronous or synchronous. The findings show that Zoom, Zalo, and YouTube were the three most popular platforms teachers used. Numerous challenges also emerged, such as more workload, more stress, technical issues, students' lack of learning devices, the requirement for parent's assistance, more interactions, and hands-on activities. Despite the obstacles, the majority of teachers showed their positive attitudes towards remote teaching. They learned new ICT tools and pedagogies and intended to continue using this approach after the pandemic. In order to improve the effectiveness of remote teaching, such suggestions as creativity and flexibility in designing lessons, parents' support, teacher's training, and upgraded ICT infrastructure are recommended.
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