TEFL PROFESSORS' E-LEARNING EXPERIENCES DURING THE COVID 19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

This study aimed at revealing teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) professors' eLearning experiences during the Covid 19 pandemic in the Gaza Strip higher education institutions. For this end, the researcher designed a (20) open-ended questions questionnaires to be completed by (32) TEFL professors in (8) Palestinian higher education institutions. Results showed that TEFL professors need training to develop their skills in designing, developing and drawing action plan for TEFL e-courses that achieve the objectives of foreign language teaching\ learning. Palestinian TEFL professors spent (4- 7) hours daily preparing, meeting, guiding, helping and facilitating learning by using different eLearning programs and network social media such as Moodle, Google classroom, Zoom, WhatsApp and Facebook. They adopted different teaching methods as well as different types of evaluation and following up in order to measure the objectives achievement; however, they neglected developing thinking and real life skills. The most challenges for both TEFL professors and learners were insufficient knowledge about eLearning and technical problems. TEFL professors action plan was focused on reducing the number of activities and drawing clear procedures with all the needed tools and activities for each objective in the course. Based on the findings, the researcher recommends that higher education institutions should provide training courses in the field of eLearning for both learners and professors, prepare a guide for designing and developing e-courses and provide professional technicians for maintenance of equipment and should regularly fix various technical malfunctions. Article visualizations: