English language teaching and learning during Covid-19: A global perspective on the first year

Abstract

The world recently witnessed the unexpected emergence of a coronavirus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic and severely impacted all aspects of human life. The sudden lockdown that came with the announcement of the pandemic affected health systems, the world economy and, inevitably, education systems across the globe. Due to the pandemic, schools and universities were closed, face-to-face education was suspended and a shift to emergency online teaching was instituted. English language training took its share in this transition and several studies were conducted to investigate the effects of the pandemic on emergency online teaching and the learning of English. This integrative literature review study analyses and synthesizes the research studies conducted between March 2020 and February 2021 to illustrate the first year of the pandemic in terms of English language teaching and learning globally. Thus, 69 research studies were selected for analysis. Findings show that the emergency online teaching and learning of English mainly created challenges due to the internet connection problems and students’ access to computer or smart phones. On the other hand, contributing the teachers’ digital literacy skills, the significance of online teaching and learning in case of emergency situations was highlighted as the findings showed. The studies produced conflicting results in terms of the implementation of emergency online teaching and learning practices, English language teachers and students’ perceptions and attitudes, the affective, motivational and cognitive aspects, and the impact of emergency online teaching on the language development of students.