Investigating English Language Teachers’ Experiences of Online Teaching During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This study aims to analyze 93 English language teaching faculty members’ perspectives of online teaching at King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this study was to collect evaluative responses on online teaching experiences. This study addressed the following research question; What are teachers’ perceptions of online teaching at English Language Skills Department at King Saud University in terms of: online vs. classroom teaching mode, personal factors in online teaching and students factors in online classes. This was a quantitative study where the researcher adapted a questionnaire from Nambiar (2020) to investigate the perspectives of KSU English language teachers towards online teaching at a college level. Findings show significant percentages of teachers who stated that online teaching improved their skills and boosted their confidence, at 40% and 34%. Also, most teachers found online classes convenient, innovative and improve their teaching skills. However, 14% of the teachers argued that technical issues affected learning. Moreover, most of the teachers claimed that the students lacked interest, made excuses and did not take online classes seriously. It was also noticeable that the implementation of online learning was very well valued because it helped the teachers develop their personal teaching skills. On the other hand, their students’ lack of interest was what most of the teachers agreed on.