Peculiarities of language teaching during the quarantine period at the Ferenc Rákóczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education (the results of questionnaire data and of interviewing)

Abstract

The year 2020 will be remembered for a long time for the worldwide spread of COVID-19, andall the unprecedented consequences it had caused. The extremely swift transition from in-class to online teachingmeant serious challenges for academia, both teachers and students. Aims. Therefore, our main objective wasto collect empirical evidence from instructors on how they coped with the tasks and challenges that they hadto face when starting teaching remotely. Methods. To better understand the undergoing processes and get insightsinto how language teachers at a higher educational establishment managed to solve the tasks they had to dealwith and complete successfully, we have created an online questionnaire for tutors to fill in during the first phaseof our investigation, while in the second one we used an interview, the results of which were analysed qualitatively.Results. The results revealed that for most of the instructors distance teaching was a completely new area ofexperience as they had not tried doing it before the pandemic. A crucial pedagogical implication derives fromВісник КНЛУ. Серія Педагогіка та психологія. Випуск 36. 202290this empirical evidence, namely, that it is of utmost importance that tutors be trained how to teach online.The factors that caused the most significant difficulties for the tutors were, among others, the assessment of studentperformance and knowledge. This finding also confirms the implication that tutors must be provided with thechance to develop their skills as online teachers. Conclusions. The second phase of our research highlighteda number of positive features of distance learning. First, students who were unable to participate in theeducational process prior to COVID-19, e.g. due to illness, are now able to join classes online, as the collegeprovides the technical background for this. Another benefit could be to involve renowned foreign speakersin the educational process. While our invited lecturers before COVID-19 came to our college in person andgave lectures to students, this is completely impossible due to the current crisis situation. However, the perfectsolution could be online connection.