RESPONSE OF A UNIVERSITY LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT TO EMERGENCY ONLINE TEACHING

In our talk we will present preliminary findings of a research study carried out during the Spring 2019/2020 academic semester in the Division of Languages of a leading university in Israel. The aim of the study was to investigate how the Division responded to the campus shutdown and the forced transition to video conference remote teaching in an emergency situation. We intended to explore the instructors’ and students’ responses and better our understanding of how the Division rallied together to deal with the impact of these sudden and drastic changes. Thus, we also related to the response of the Division head. Specifically, our research questions were: 1. How do teachers and students perceive the video conference remote language teaching and learning? 2. How has the Division ensured the successful transition to video conference remote teaching? Our participants included the head of the Division, many of the teachers on staff and a large number of students studying at different proficiency levels of English, German and Spanish. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and document analysis of emails and student tasks (e.g. fora, essays). The findings provide a type of “snapshot” of the thoughts, feelings and concerns of those most impacted by the forced transition, and highlight the similarities and differences of response of the various parties involved. In particular, it appears that the joining of forces in the context of emergency teaching not only contributed to a more successful transition, but to building an even closer-knit professional community within the Division.