The moderating effect of participation in online learning activities and perceived importance of online learning on EFL teachers' teaching ability.

With the sudden outbreak of COVID-19, many educational contexts shifted from traditional face-to-face instruction to online and remote modes of delivery. This inspired a surge of scholarly attention in various countries to disclose the status and perceptions of stakeholders regarding online education. However, most of the existing studies in second/foreign language contexts are limited to students' and teachers' perceived emotions and experiences in e-instruction. Moreover, the extent to which online participation and the perceived importance of e-education influence teachers' teaching ability has been widely overlooked. To fill this gap, this study explored the moderating influence of EFL teachers' participation in online learning activities and the perceived importance of online learning on their teaching ability. In doing so, a questionnaire was spread and filled in by 453 Chinese EFL teachers with different backgrounds. The results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) obtained by Amos (v. 24) indicated that individual/demographic factors do not affect teachers' perceived importance of online learning. It was also demonstrated that the perceived importance of online learning and learning time does not predict EFL teachers' teaching ability. Furthermore, the results reveal that EFL teachers' teaching ability does not predict their perceived importance of online learning. However, teachers' participation in online learning activities predicted and explained 66% of the variance in their perceived importance of online learning. The study has implications for EFL teachers and teacher trainers in that it improves their awareness of the value of technologies in L2 education and practice.

Probing into the boredom of online instruction among Chinese English language teachers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Although researching emotions in language education has dramatically increased during the past decades, little is written about the effects of aversive feelings like teacher boredom in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context, especially in the context of online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Against this shortcoming, this study examined the causes of and solutions to teacher boredom experienced by 216 Chinese EFL teachers, including both genders with their ages ranging from 19 to 58. In so doing, the researcher used maximum variation sampling to gather the data via an open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The gleaned data were then thematically analyzed by MAXQDA (Version 2020) whose results indicated that most participants consider the online mode of delivery more boring than the face-to-face mode. Additionally, the findings demonstrated that both the antecedents of and the solutions to teacher boredom come under the macro-categories of student-related, task-related, IT-related, and teacher-related factors and solutions. Out of these, IT-related factors and teacher-related solutions were the most frequently raised themes extracted from the data. The study presents some practical implications and directions for future research.

Exploring Educational Planning, Teacher Beliefs, and Teacher Practices During the Pandemic: A Study of Science and Technology-Based Universities in China.

With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, university teachers are coping with and adjusting to online teaching platforms. In this concurrent mixed-methods study, 10 science and technology universities as the research sites were first chosen, and educational planning in these sites during the pandemic was examined; then, eight selected teacher participants in these sites were interviewed to report how their beliefs and practices changed during the pandemic echoing the examined educational planning. The results show that educational planning and policies assisted teachers in accommodating the new demands and changes during the pandemic; teachers' beliefs and practices generally echoed the educational planning and policies, with certain tensions still existing. The discussion part of the study is centered around emergency remote teaching and planning, tensions between teacher beliefs and practices, and the shift from emergency remote teaching to regular, sustainable online schooling. The study provides administrators and teacher educators with insights on how emergency remote teaching can be planned and implemented during an unprecedented time.