CHALLENGES FACED BY ELT INSTRUCTORS AT TERTIARY LEVEL IN VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT (VLE) DURING THE PANDEMIC: OPPORTUNITIES AND WAY FORWARD

Abstract

With the start of spring 2020 Pakistani educational institutes were forced to be closed due to COVID-19, the outbreak of the pandemic caused the universities to close the campuses temporarily and start online teaching. The purpose of this research is to find out the challenges which teachers faced during online learning during COVID-19 and the way forward in ELT practices in the times of COVID-19. The sudden overnight transition in response to the global educational emergency imposed because of the pandemic, left 1.2 billion children out of school in 186 countries. COVID-19 has redefined the future path of education. Engaging students in communicative activities became our way forward. Just as we were mastering this approach through practice, came the remote classes, and the issue of effectively engaging students without ever setting eyes on them. The digital divide due to the availability of infrastructure requires out of the box innovative solutions to bridge the newest inequity in education. The study explores the challenges faced by instructors in ELT classrooms during COVID-19. The research is quantitative in nature, universities teachers are selected as sample of the study. Semi-structured interviews are conducted to find out the challenges faced by the instructors during online teaching in their classrooms. The interviews are analysed thematically to know the perception of teachers regarding online learning and also the challenges they faced during that time.