Iranian Middle School Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions of Emergency Remote English Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The impact of COVID-19 on education involved an abrupt switch from face-to-face instruction toward emergency remote teaching/learning. In public schools, teachers and students were required to undertake language education using virtual learning platforms. This shift created certain problems for both teachers and students. This qualitative research attempts to explore challenges encountered by English teachers and students in Iranian middle schools during the lockdown period. 47 participants were selected by stratified purposive sampling, providing qualitative data through semi-structured interviews and online focus groups. Thematic analysis illustrated economic, technological, and instructional concerns in addition to a set of psychological pressures. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic created certain affordances for language program which accelerated the process of online language education. The anticipation and effective management of educational problems arising from such catastrophes would help stakeholders enhance the quality of language education, prioritize teachers’ and students’ language needs at the middle level education of public schools, and facilitate learning/teaching process.

Keywords:

• emergency remote teaching
• COVID-19 pandemic
• qualitative research
• language program
• middle level education

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the reviewers of the paper for their valuable guidance, constructive suggestions, and insightful comments which helped us improve the quality of the paper. Also, a special thanks goes to Dr. Mark Fraser at University of Wollongong for proofreading the paper. In addition, we appreciate two friends of ours who proofread our paper and wanted their names to remain anonymous. Last, but not the least, we would like to thank all the participants who with their motivation, commitment, experiences, and inputs contributed the enactment and accomplishment of this research.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).