COURSE: Technology and Innovations in ELT

CODE: BIP60404
SEMESTER: 2
ASSIGNMENT 1
How should teachers use technology in the post-
pandemic classroom?

LECTURER : DR. FARAH NATCHIAR MOHD. KHAJA

NAME : UVARANI RETNAM
MATRICS : M20221001403
NUMBER
 a) Brief introduction of a teaching environment including your
observations on the expectations and realities of teaching at present.

Education is the only industry that is completely transferred to online mode in most countries
around the world. Online learning was the best solution for continuing education during the
pandemic, especially in tertiary education. COVID-19 has disrupted most of the industries in the
world. The need for education updating was required because of the fast advances in technology.
The global decision to close the educational institutes was rational to keep social distancing to
stop its spread. Some countries switched to online learning immediately because they were
already prepared for online learning. There are some advantages and disadvantages of online
learning; the accessibility of online education globally, saving time, money, and efforts are
advantages of online learning. In teaching, the lecture’s recording is one advantage of online
learning when students ask teachers to record the classes. The teachers are reviewing and
preparing well for recording, which certainly improves teaching strategies and methods. Students
can access the lectures anytime and can understand better. Some difficulties were in English
language skills and other English courses, such as writing challenges, speaking challenges, and
reading challenges. For linguistics courses such as phonetics and phonology challenges where
the teacher needs to teach phonemes, allophones, morphemes, etc. face to face. Not all learners
have good internet connectivity. Some learners suffered from network problems, lacking high-
quality learning devices.

Nowadays, the challenges to access online learning are less because both learners and teachers
have been experienced the excellent opportunity of knowing and interacting with educational
technology tools such as mobile-based learning, computer-based learning, and web based
learning.
Their interaction with the virtual and digital world is more. The interactions of today’s’ learners
with different sorts of technology for various purposes enabled them to be active recipients of e-
learning. The role of information technology (IT) and COVID-19 pandemic in hastening current
and future e-learning entrepreneurship activation are considered a panacea at the time of crisis
and
difficulties.
However, during my observations students are said to be positive and effective of online learning
during the pandemic. Using educational technology in teaching and learning is appropriate. They
finds some learners were motivated to work harder in learning English through online learning
and some other learners were demotivated during their face to face learning. There are
advantages and disadvantages of online learning during COVID-19.
The pedagogical theories and teaching approaches are used to know the methods of using
technology and how it can be integrated into learners’ education effectively. Many theories are
involved in educational processes, techniques, and approaches. However, they still adhere to
traditional methods of learning. The theoretical perspective which reinforced the development of
the new pedagogies is the activity.

b) Example on the types of technology/digital tools recommended

(choose 3 and justification for their use

The online learning challenges, and problems during COVID-19 encountered EFL learners. The
synchronized e-learning was the panacea at the time of the pandemic. However, it negatively
influenced the learners’ performance and learning outcomes. The teachers and students face the
same problem and the difficulties in accessing the online learning. The major challenges
encountered by students and teachers during online learning were technical issues. Some
students faced internet connectivity problems, accessing classes, and downloading courses’
materials problems. Online exams could not be opened on students’ mobile phones. Regarding
language communication issues, students could not effectively interact with teachers during
virtual classes of English language skills, as revealed in students responses to open-ended
questions. According to my readings teachers and students satisfaction with online learning
learners are not fully supporting continuing online education if there is no crisis. It is
recommended that further research should be undertaken to understand the teachers’ views and
experiences towards online English language teaching during the pandemic.
During the first months of the pandemic, teachers had to scramble and find the best ways to set
up a virtual classroom that would keep their students engaged. Google Classroom is the low-
key most versatile online teaching tool available. This Learning Management System (LMS) is
part of G Suite, which means teachers can use Google apps to create lessons, quizzes and
documents all inside Google Classroom. To use the Google Classroom app, you’ll need a G
Suite for Education account. Many schools and teachers transitioned to this LMS when schools
were closed due to the pandemic. For anyone using Google products regularly, Google
Classroom is easy to tackle. Inside the app, educators offer the content for the lessons, quizzes,
assessments, and tests. They can also communicate with the students and parents via message
boards or email. The best thing about Google Classroom is that you can create all the content for
your classes with the software of your choice. For example, you can simply use Google apps to
prepare lesson materials or import any visual.

Next would be Pear Deck is the perfect add-on for teachers who regularly use Google Slides and
Microsoft PowerPoint. It improves interactivity and the quality of visuals on the teacher’s slides.
The add-on is available in the editor and also includes a teacher platform to help keep track of
student participation during class. When you open the Pear Deck add-on in your Google Slides
or Microsoft Powerpoint software, it’s available in a sidebar. All the features are accessible from
right inside the editor and can improve your presentations to a great degree.

Finally Quizizz is a free quiz maker for students of any age. If you don’t want to create your own
quiz, there are lots of available quizzes in the gallery that are free to use. Integrate your quiz
seamlessly with Google Classroom or share it with a link. You can also share it as a game and
send the link to the Remind app and other online teaching tools. Considering that Quizizz has
been used in regular classrooms for a while, the transition of the tool to online teaching was
seamless.
 c) Conclude with comments on current theories/approaches in ELT

The teachers do face issues by students during the current pandemic. Some of these issues are e-
learning challenges, learners’ interaction with information technology tools in e-learning, and
learners’ satisfaction with online learning. There are many students missed many tasks, duties,
and communications with teachers, which are essential in the educational process activities.

The online class access, class materials downloading, audio, and video playing, this is in line
may worries the technical issue’s solution. The technical support is needed to enable reliability in
online learning. Teachers and students were forced to tackle this issue and utilize other online
education platforms for undisrupted learning during the crisis. They used platforms such as
emails for submitting their assignments, Microsoft teams, Google, and Zoom platform for
conducting some classes either due to the non-availability of the internet access. Besides, the
What Sapp platform was used by most of the students during online learning. The availability of
mobile phones helped online learning succeed because most students used their mobile phones in
this context. The impact of using social media applications in learning and recommended
activation of these applications in English language learning.

As noticed in the results section above, challenges and related online issues in online English
language learning showed the highest scores of all the statistical measures. The study addressed
these issues where most EFL Learners encountered during COVID-19 online learning; most of
the students are coming from remote towns where the network is experiencing pressure due to
the COVID-19 crisis as all the students, teachers, and most of the other sectors shifted to work
online. Learners confronted some difficulties accessing online lessons, materials downloading,
online exams conducting, etc., students reported these issues as the most significant issue.
The format or extension not supported by their devices. There are also some other issues that the
learners faced; such as, the lack of digital skills in using Google classroom, the need for all
online learning equipment, tools, systems, lack of real English language practice with the
teachers and their classmates, etc. The findings of the current paper corroborate the findings of
previous research on the same issues about online learning during COVID-19, and there are
showing students are not happy with online education and many obstacles have been
encountered as well.

The last discussion is the analysis of the general satisfaction of learners with online English
language education during the COVID-19 crisis. However, in the beginning, most of the students
came online for the first time. They lacked the experience and confidence to learn online using a
new medium. After some time, most learners could overcome most of the technical issues related
to online learning platforms. But the English language learning challenges are still problematic in
online learning during the pandemic.