Language Teaching in the Time of COVID-19: Insights From Experienced and Pre-Service Teachers

Introduction

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 turned the world upside down, halting the normalcy of seemingly unbreakable institutions such the primary, secondary, and higher education systems in the U.S. What was accomplished with ease in the classroom one day was virtually impossible the next due to school closures, quarantine restrictions, and social distancing limitations, among a myriad of other personal and professional repercussions. As a beacon for active engagement and communication, world language (WL) classrooms were especially shaken by the pandemic and the absence of face-to-face (F2F) opportunities for interaction and negotiation of meaning in the target language, essential facets of second language acquisition (SLA) (Gass, 1997; Long, 1996).

As new technologies continue to spread into nearly every corner of the education system, language teachers face the challenge of staying well-informed about new tools and the different affordances they may provide, oftentimes with little training or direction (Blake, 2009; Hubbard, 2007; Kessler & Hubbard, 2017; Robb, 2006). In fact, even before the pandemic, Haines (2015) pointed out that language teachers’ perceptions of affordances in new technological tools are strongly influenced by their own backgrounds and teaching styles as well as the processes they find important to support learners’ proficiency in the target language. Regardless of their background, preparation, and readiness, language teachers at all levels were forced to reconceptualize what they knew about best practices to accommodate the rapidly evolving needs and learning contexts of their students (and themselves) during COVID-19 (Trust & Whalen, 2020). Consequently, sharp pedagogical pivots have been necessary in order to sustain second language (L2) learning throughout the peaks and valleys of the pandemic, including during emergency remote instruction, mask mandates, physical distancing, along with the many other unanticipated changes that have disrupted learning environments.

Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, the resiliency of WL educators and students alike has proven astounding, and the resulting pedagogical innovations in language teaching and learning will undoubtedly impact the field for years to come. Thus, the mission of this chapter is twofold: 1) to shed light on the main challenges brought on by COVID-19 among both pre-service and experienced in-service WL teachers in the K-16 context and 2) to highlight the practices these educators found successful in fostering language learning and engagement in a virtual or blended platform. This paper seeks to show that with the appropriate methods, the teaching and learning of another language can provide both students and educators with the solidarity and human connection that has so desperately been missed during these times of increased isolation and uncertainty. The victories and challenges reported by these WL educators will shape how the field conceptualizes best practices in language teaching and learning as we move through and beyond COVID-19.