ABSTRACT
The number of students of African origin traveling abroad for postgraduate engineering education has increased over the last 30 years. Studying abroad provides unique experiences and benefits for African students and the host country. These experiences place international scholars in an ideal position to reflect on the different experiences between the practices, attitudes, social diversity, and competency development they find in their new study destinations and hence can make suggestions for improvement in their home and host countries. This paper explores the experience, reflections, and adaptation of African scholars to their international educational context during the COVID pandemic, using a collaborative autoethnography methodology. Elements of the theoretical frameworks of acculturation theory and adaptability theory were used in the collection, analysis, and discussion of the paper to address the following research questions: 1) What are the experiences and perspectives of African Diaspora graduate scholars in undertaking engineering education studies in the US? 2) What improvements are suggested for the study environments in their home countries and in the US? The findings raise provocative thoughts about the culture of and the philosophies behind the present nature of instruction, assessment, student supervision, experiences, and workload in the US and African countries. We argue for a need to disrupt several realities that have become a norm for African diaspora students and suggest how this can be done drawing from our own experiences within these unique environments. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of the COVID-19 caused Pakistani universities to close the campuses and forced them to initiate online teaching. This study explores the responses and feedback of students regarding its advantages, limitations and recommendations. The research population is the graduate students of department of English at University of Lahore, Pakistan. Specific instructional strategies are presented to summarize current online teaching experiences for university students who were forced to take online education in such circumstances. Learning system is developing day by day with the help of modern technology and the it plays a significant role in online education. English language teachers utilized and incorporated modern technology into their pedagogical practices. For this reason, they mostly utilize virtual interface. In their capacity, English Language teachers and learners involved in interactions, i.e. "anytime anywhere", which enhances extra momentum teaching learning process. The nature of this study was based on a descriptive-exploratory research. The mixed approach was utilized in this research. One hundred and ten respondents were selected with a set of questions, i.e. educational attainment, technological aspects, learning process and learners' responses. So, this study demonstrates how Google Classroom, Moodle, WhatsApp and Instagram have been a source of lesson and it records the studens' experiences and feedback. © 2020 Asian EFL Journal Press. All rights reserved.