E-learning: An effective mode of teaching English as a Second Language

Abstract

The benefits of e-learning in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) are huge. The outbreak of the dreaded COVID19 pandemic has forced schools, colleges and universities to temporarily remain closed to fight the contagion. E-learning or online learning is a learning method which has been employed in such a difficult scenario to continue the teaching-learning process. E-learning uses various tools and systems to optimize the teaching-learning process through online platforms. For teaching ESL, the teachers should explore collaborative learning, communicative language teaching, and communicative task-based language teaching to enable learners to effectively participate in the e-learning process. The use of these approaches engages the students to interact and perform the assigned tasks enabling them to effectively learn the language in the online platform. The paper explores the various e-learning practices into making effective teaching of English as a second language. Various e-learning tools like the internet, video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Google Meet and Webex, Google Classroom, YouTube, podcast and vodcast, online-boards, mobile phones, and social networking sites like WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter are explored to efficiently teach English as a second language. Further, the study investigated and analyzed an ESL classroom where various e-learning tools are used.