Teaching foreign languages during Covid-19: challenges and training gaps for teachers

Abstract

The objective of this work is to determine, empirically, the challenges that foreign language teachers have faced, in different countries of the world, during the health crisis, derived from Covid-19. In this research, the reasons underlying these difficulties are analyzed, evaluating the role of digital teaching competence in the training of this group. This work is defined with a mixed paradigm in which quantitative and qualitative methods are systematically integrated to ensure optimal triangulation of the data obtained. The main quantitative data collection tool is a questionnaire designed to determine the challenges of the foreign language teacher during the pandemic and that has been distributed digitally to informants. An accidental non-probabilistic sampling has been used that has made it possible to obtain information from sixty-four teachers at different educational levels and located in different countries of the world: Spain, USA, France, Ivory Coast, Australia, Latvia, Barbados, Colombia, Hong Kong, England, Madagascar, Italy, Thailand or Trinidad and Tobago, among others. The qualitative component consists of a set of free-response questions, that seek to validate previously obtained data and demonstrate that teacher digital literacy is a pending subject in foreign language teacher training, a deficiency, even more, appreciated during the health crisis.