Abstract
French language instructors at the University of Bahrain faced many challenges in adapting their teaching practices during the sudden transition to online teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this case study, we explore the French language instructors’ perceptions of e-learning and their attitudes toward technology during the pandemic as well as their students’ perceptions of the quality of their online teaching. The objective of this study is to analyze the relationship between instructors’ perceptions and teaching performance. We conducted the study during the beginning of the sudden change to online teaching and administered online survey-based data collection instruments to gather information about French language instructors’ perceptions and undergraduate students’ satisfaction with the quality of French language online teaching. One year later, we completed data collection with semi-structured interviews of the instructors’ perceptions and online teaching experience. The findings indicated that despite the abrupt switch to online teaching, instructors showed a prominent level of technology acceptance. However, the results indicated effective online teaching was highly correlated to instructors’ pedagogical preparedness and self-efficacy level. Consequently, this study outlines key factors influencing the efficacy of e-learning, including pedagogical preparedness, instructors’ self-efficacy, and information and communications technology literacy. In addition, in this study we propose implications for instructors’ preparation and development.
Highlights
Introduction and Literature ReviewIn response to the vast spread of COVID-19, in March 2020, the University of Bahrain officially started a transition to e-learning to maintain social distance and continue teaching
Items 1 through 6 of the survey about instructors’ information communication technology (ICT) literacy revealed that instructors had a moderate level of perceived technological self-efficacy and that the massive integration of technology and the internet during COVID-19 was a new experience for them
E-learning has seen its greatest use to date during the COVID-19 pandemic, which made it the only effective teaching method to ensure the continuous delivery of instruction
Summary
Introduction and Literature ReviewIn response to the vast spread of COVID-19, in March 2020, the University of Bahrain officially started a transition to e-learning to maintain social distance and continue teaching. Some of the main challenges that the institution faced during the COVID-19 pandemic were training nonexpert instructors in a brief period to use e-learning platforms, ensuring their pedagogical preparedness to transform the curricula into an online resource (Dhawan, 2020), designing e-content and e-activities, adapting assessments to the new learning requirements (Rapanta et al, 2020), ensuring teaching presence (Rapanta et al, 2020), and creating an effective e-learning environment where students received support as in traditional face-to-face instruction through monitoring the learning process. Some studies have concluded that successful practices used in traditional face-to-face instruction did not always translate into successful online teaching practices and that online teaching required adjustments to teachers’ beliefs and pedagogical roles (Hsi Lin & Zheng, 2015)
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