Examining Language Teachers' Change in TPACK-HOTS Self-Perception during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia

In light of the ongoing concern of the Indonesian Ministry of Education to continuously upgrade teachers' competence in the use of technology and impart critical thinking as part of 21st-century skills, this study sought to examine language teachers' self-perception of their TPACK and Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) competence during the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, an explanatory sequential mixed-method study was designed to gather data from 137 languages (English and Bahasa Indonesia) teachers from various parts of Indonesia, employing a questionnaire and interview for data collection. The quantitative and qualitative data analysis revealed that the teachers perceived a rise in all TPACK subdomains, with the highest increment in TK and the smallest for CK. The teachers also rated themselves higher in HOTS and opined that TPACK supported HOTS-based lesson implementation. The implications for teacher training and pedagogy are also discussed. © 2023, The Pacific Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning (PacCALL). All rights reserved.

A Systematic Review of Online Elt Research in Indonesia during the Covid-19 Pandemic through the Community of Inquiry Framework

Aim/Purpose This study attempts to provide a thorough review on online English Language Teaching (ELT) research in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim of presenting best practices of online ELT classes for the future blended or hybrid learning scenario. To operationalize the "best practices " of online learning, the Community of Inquiry framework was used as the guiding perspective. Background There is a dearth of research employing a systematic review of English Lan-guage Teaching ( "ELT ") practices in Indonesia carried out during the pandemic, with a view of synthesizing such practices. Such a review is deemed essential in order to provide a comprehensive description of good practices in online Eng-lish classes, such as in terms of integrating technology into the ELT virtual clas-ses, taking advantage of the experience gained from approximately more than two years of Emergency Remote Learning in the country. Methodology This study employed the Research Review methodology, with PRISMA (Pre-ferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis) 2020 to guide the process. Database (Google Scholar and Scopus) search was conducted to find research articles in English on ELT during the pandemic in Indonesia, ex-cluding those that are conceptual in nature. The final list of 94 articles was then coded using the categories in the Community of Inquiry ( "CoI ") framework, namely, Teaching, Cognitive, and Social Presence. Inter-rater reliability was com-puted to assess the risk of bias of the two reviewers. The resulting data, in the form of pieces of "evidence " of the CoI categories, were tabulated and de-scribed. Contribution This research has contributed to providing a synthesis of online ELT teaching practice in Indonesia during the pandemic, specifically in describing the way teachers enacted the Teaching, Cognitive, and Social Presence online through the use of technology. This paper also describes how such deployment of technology should be accompanied by a selective choice of activities and explicit guidance from teachers, as well as teachers' supportive attitude. Consequently, this study is probably among the first to carry out a systematic review of emergency online ELT practice during the pandemic from the CoI perspective, ad-dressing a methodological gap of extant online ELT systematic review studies. Findings The results show that Teaching Presence constituted the highest number of pieces of evidence, with a caveat that the application of technology should be combined with clear instruction and task requirements. Next, Cognitive Presence needs to be fostered through activities that promote problem solving and critical thinking, such as online discussions, problem- or project-based learning, and self-reflection. Lastly, teachers need to make use of technologies to convey genuine concern for students and create a warm and friendly online environment as part of teaching activities that build Social Presence, although some affective expressions will need to be managed well to prevent some possible un-desirable effects. Recommendations for Practitioners English teachers in Indonesia, or elsewhere with a similar context to that in the country, can gain insights on the good practice of online learning in terms of teaching methods, media, platforms, assessments, etc. Besides, the online Eng-lish teaching practices can also inform pre- and in-service teacher education programs, so as to provide technology integration training that has already been tried and empirically tested. Recommendations for Researchers For future research, the seemingly fewer pieces of evidence found in Cognitive and Social Presence might be fertile ground for Indonesian ELT scholars to carry out research focusing on those aspects. Much research outside of Indonesia has been conducted around the theme of the application of CoI principles in online English classes, while only a few studies in this respect have been found in the Indonesian context. Impact on Society The findings of this study may help inform educational p licies with regards to blended/hybrid or restricted face-to-face meetings in schools. Future Research This paper has contributed to exemplifying the application of CoI framework as a tool of systematic review in research. Hence, in view of the impending blended, hybrid, or limited face-to-face learning, this type of CoI-framed sys-tematic review research can be replicated in the future to assess the effective-ness of such blended or hybrid teaching mode. Besides, future research could also inquire whether ELT teachers sustain the use of technology in the post -pandemic, on-site learning.

SECONDARY SCHOOL LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ ONLINE LEARNING ENGAGEMENT DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN INDONESIA

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore language teachers’ online engagement during the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Four questions guided the inquiry in this study: 1) To what extent did teachers engage in online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic? 2) What challenges did teachers encounter while engaging in online learning during the Covid-19 crisis? 3) How has the suspension of face-to-face classroom meetings changed teachers’ practices? and 4) What were their hopes for the future of education in their respective regions? Background: The sudden learn-from-home mode enacted since 24 March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic has forced all schools to shift into online learning with no or little preparation in terms of internet access, teacher capacity, and stu-dent-parent readiness. All in all, the pandemic disruption has shed light on the widening digital divide that has serious implications for the human capital development in Indonesia Methodology: This case study involved 18 teachers from four regions in Indonesia. Data were collected through an online survey, weekly reflections, and interviews with the teachers. A group interview with five students for each of the 18 teachers was used as triangulation. To probe more deeply into a representative sample for a variety of attributes, the researchers then focused on four teachers for a more in-depth analysis. Contribution: Knowledge of the impacting factors on online learning engagement can aid in resolving the issues and providing equal opportunities for all students. This study highlighted that teachers in remote regions would need a more top-down intervention from education authorities and offered two recommendations to the government to overcome the widening digital divide as amplified by the current school suspension. This study presents interesting results pertaining to online learning engagement during the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Insights gained in this study would contribute to the perspective on the challenges and dilemmas faced by educators and students elsewhere while engaging in online learning. Findings: This study found an interplay of five related factors of online learning pro-cesses against five levels of engagement. Those five factors are learners, teachers’ prior exposure to online learning, technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and the support system. Teachers in this study were still struggling to enhance the quality of online learning engagement. Nevertheless, given the rising awareness of the inadequacy of their online learning delivery and a renewed sense of commitment, these teachers had high hopes that they would be able to enhance their competence and improve their professional practices. Recommendations for Practitioners: This study found most teacher participants have, within a short period, enhanced their technological knowledge (TK) regardless of their prior exposure to technology. Teachers can be encouraged to integrate their technological knowledge with pedagogical and content knowledge to develop their techno-logical pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) by participating in the government program for teacher professional development. Recommendations for Researchers: This study involves only language teachers;therefore, future researchers are invited to involve non-language teachers so that more conclusive findings can be obtained. Impact on Society: Knowledge of the impacting factors on online learning engagement can aid in resolving the issues and providing equal opportunities for all students. More importantly, the lessons learned should enlighten educators that technology integration into sound pedagogy would transform current practices into quality learning. Future Research: Issues related to technology integration in education can still be unearthed especially because the budding insights of online learning will steadily be developing in post-pandemic realm, particularly in Indonesia. © 2020