Language Teachers' Perceived Advantages and Disadvantages of Emergency Remote Teaching

ABSTRACT

This study investigates university-level German instructors' perceived advantages and disadvantages of synchronous emergency remote teaching during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic at five universities across the United States. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered by means of an electronic questionnaire from 16 instructors of beginning German regarding their experiences with live remote instruction in 2020. Survey questions centered on the five goal areas of the World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages and online instructional practices. Findings indicate that the language instructors from the sample perceived emergency remote instruction--switching to teaching live online--to be overall more detrimental than advantageous to their students' language learning over the course of the quarantine and subsequent two pandemic semesters. However, the emergency switch to online instruction also afforded these instructors the opportunity to recognize some advantages to online instruction. The emergency nature of the switch to remote teaching revealed principles of resilience and the need for online language pedagogy in professional development. This study has implications for language teachers, administrators, language program directors, and state and district supervisors.