The Online Learning Strategies: A Case Study On English Teachers in East Nusa Tenggara Province-Indonesia

Abstract

During the covid 19 pandemic, online learning, and its terms are not strange things in East Nusa Tenggara. The establishment of Learning from home was started from March to June 2020 to prevent the spread of Covid-19. This research is a case study of eleven English teachers who serve in certain areas around East Nusa Tenggara; five teachers of Senior High School/Vocational School, five teachers of Junior High School, and one Elementary School teacher. Its purpose was to describe the methods in the English teaching-learning process in a pandemic situation. The data of this descriptive study were obtained through WhatsApp non-facial interviews and analyzed by reducing and categorizing similar results. The results showed that the teachers applied two methods, both offline and online.  From March to June 2020, the teachers managed their classes in the online process by using some applications. Whereas, in the Uneven Semester 2020-2021, the safe areas return to face-to-face learning in limited learning duration. The most prominent obstacle in online learning was the limitation of gadgets since the students did not have adequate tools. Financially, parents' income has decreased for they could not meet the needs of internet data packages. Students who returned to their hometown also experienced problems regarding network services. These conditions cause more obstacles to teachers in managing online classes. Therefore, teachers implemented several strategies to solve these obstacles by creating a WhatsApp group or arranging them into small groups based on their locations and there were students with smartphones to browse for materials or send the assignments. In addition, students were allowed to consult and collect the assignments at school based on scheduled agreements. The situation continues to Even Semester 2020-2021 and gradually turned to limited face-to-face meetings at school in the Uneven Semester 2021-2022.