Tertiary Students’ Perspectives on Online Learning During Emergency Remote Teaching in the Context of Covid-19: A Case Study

Abstract

In the midst of a global pandemic, educational institutions in Vietnam were forced to move all courses online. Under that circumstance, emergency remote teaching (ERT) is a conceivable alternative for onsite learning. This paper provides an insight into one specific case study of a university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The study employed a Likert scale survey, open-ended questions, and a semi-structured interview to examine undergraduate students' perspectives and their engagement (N = 255) in the context of ERT amid COVID-19. Our findings illustrated opportunities and obstacles entailing online video-conferencing lessons with multiple modalities in language teaching and learning. The results showed a rather skeptical view towards online language learning due to the lack of students-student and student-instructor interactions. The paper ends with some implications to improve students' engagement in distance teaching and learning context.