Event Date
Transitioning to Emergency Online Teaching: The Experience of Spanish Language Learners and Teachers in a US University
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted an unprecedented emergency online transition (EOT) in Spring 2020. This study documents the unfolding of this EOT in a Spanish language program at a US University, and reports on how students and their instructors experienced this unique academic term. Concretely, 210 language learners enrolled in three beginner courses at a large public university in California completed an end-of-term questionnaire about their experiences during the EOT in the last week of the 10-week long academic term. To add a longitudinal perspective of students’ experiences, 44 students also completed two mid-term questionnaires on weeks 3 and 7. Data from instructor questionnaires (N=14) and interviews (N=7), as well as two individual instructors' weekly journal entries and recordings of their synchronous Zoom sessions, offered a complementary perspective on student data, ensuring appropriate triangulation. Data analysis followed Grounded Theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2014), and NVivo was used for qualitative coding and inter-rater agreement calculations. The results show how participants’ preparation to digital practices and multimodal teaching, students’ development of autonomy, and institutional flexibility fostered a supportive learning environment in the context of rapid change. This research informs teacher education practices and institutional decisions promoting equity, particularly when facing the unexpected. It also discusses future steps needed to bridge theoretical knowledge to its implementation in real language teaching programs.
For more information please, contact Sophia Minnillo, smminnillo@ucdavis.edu
Event sponsored by Cluster on Language Research