Murat
Turkish teacher with 16 years of experience,
teaching an English preparatory course at a university in Northern Cyprus
1st June 2020
Life before Covid-19
I teach at an English-medium university, and my students are studying on an intensive one-year English preparatory course before they can start their degree. I’m a teacher and also a level-coordinator, and teach between ten hours and twenty-five hours a week depending on the term -I was teaching twenty-five hours before coronavirus. We are given set materials from our university, so my life was mostly teaching.
Before coronavirus, motivation was the main challenge as our students want to study their degree subject and spending one year studying English doesn’t really appeal to all of them. The biggest challenge was trying to teach the students the importance of language both in their department and life after university.
How things have changed because of Covid-19
Things have changed dramatically since coronavirus. Northern Cyprus was quite prompt in taking precautions: a few days after the first cases a curfew was imposed and for around two months we were only allowed to leave our homes for basic necessities. I consider myself to be an active person, so this sedentary life was a big change.
I consider myself a tech-savvy person, but I don’t like this current situation because we didn’t choose or plan this -if you’re going to implement a system you should be prepared for that and have goals for that kind of education.
Shifting to online teaching was complicated -we were massively unprepared. The university administration decided to make teaching asynchronous because we were not sure if all of our students had the means to access online education. So for the first one month or so we converted all of the materials into a digital format, created Google Forms, and pre-recorded our lessons. We did a lot of screencasting, and shared those resources with students to give them the opportunity to access them whenever it was possible. Later, we did some questionnaires and students wanted online lessons so we moved to synchronous plus asynchronous lessons. Materials-wise the students are maybe getting more input, but it’s much more work because before I was only modifying the materials, but now we have to convert everything. So now I sit in front of the computer not only for teaching, but also for converting and developing more materials. I consider myself a tech-savvy person, but I don’t like this current situation because we didn’t choose or plan this -if you’re going to implement a system you should be prepared for that and have goals for that kind of education. I can do this if I have enough time to prepare for it, but what I’m doing now is mostly sedentary sitting in front of the computer and dealing with technology-related problems.
I didn’t have much training myself because my school relied on people like me to give the coaching to other teachers. Because I consider myself ‘tech-savvy’ and was more familiar with Google Classroom, I was one of the people who unofficially trained other teachers. Additionally, as a teacher now, I am like an educational technology advisor. Yes, I’m teaching, but instead of asking questions about English, students are asking questions like ‘I answered this, but the system says it is incorrect. Why is it incorrect?’
I’m not blaming them, because probably they are not prepared for this and they didn’t sign up for an education like this so maybe it’s not for them and they cannot sit in front of a computer for so long and learn something they don’t know.
I think my students’ needs are probably not being met. The number of students attending is getting lower and lower. Normally, they have to attend a compulsory number of lessons, and from exams and quizzes they have to collect a certain number of points to be able to take the final exam. Because of coronavirus, attendance is no longer compulsory and students can take the final proficiency exam, so they have stopped attending classes. I have 27 students in two classes and in today’s lessons I had 6 students in one class and 4 students in the other, so students are not receiving the education they need. I’m not blaming them, because probably they are not prepared for this and they didn’t sign up for an education like this so maybe it’s not for them and they cannot sit in front of a computer for so long and learn something they don’t know. My students are in a more desperate situation than me, so I have to be able to do something for them because our system is quite strict and their final grades are essential. I know all students are struggling so one thing that keeps me going is trying to help them and even though they don’t attend the live sessions, I try to motivate them because I don’t want them to lose their chance to study their degrees. Another thing is that this may be the ‘new normal’: this online form will be part of our education from now on. Being sad and being unhappy wouldn’t help. Even if I don’t like it, I have to keep going.
Challenges and greatest concerns
Now because the exam is the main motivation for students, they are mostly focussed on reading, writing and vocabulary, and have totally lost opportunities for communication. It’s a concern: if we go back to normal again, these students will have less chance of engaging in English language communication.
it’s like I’m in a cage with all the other teachers teaching the same stuff, all the rest I don’t know what they are doing.
Job security is one of my greatest concerns. If things go on like this, I don’t know if the school will need as many teachers. Another concern is if this is going on forever because this is not really the job I signed up for. I like being in class, I like being in contact with my students and colleagues. At the moment, all the teachers teaching the same level have nice collaboration, and we share documents and ideas. On the other hand, I have almost no contact with other teachers I used to see regularly -it’s like I’m in a cage with all the other teachers teaching the same stuff, all the rest I don’t know what they are doing. Normally we had a lot of time to mingle with other teachers, but now I don’t know what they are doing in class or how they are progressing.
Opportunities
I’ve learnt how to use things like Zoom, collaboration tools, and educational technology. Screencasting is another thing I feel proficient in. For students, they’ve also had to learn about these educational platforms and tools. I cannot think of any other opportunities that have arisen from this period.
Looking to the future
If this continues, I’m expecting a drop in the number of students because most of our students are not from Cyprus and I don’t know if I would choose an education online when you have face-to-face opportunities in your own country. For existing students, they say they don’t want to do lessons like this. Maybe in time they will be better adapted to this system because they are a technology-integrated generation, so that’s a hopeful possibility. If things go back to normal, I would be happy, and from the feedback I get from my students, they will also be happy. I think social distancing is here to stay though. I will probably be much more careful in dealing with group work and the way that I conduct class.
I am hopeful. I know until now I sounded a bit pessimistic, but in the end I think we are going to get over this and even if we keep on doing online lessons I’m hopeful that we will be less unprepared because the biggest challenge was being totally unprepared, physically, psychologically, material-wise: everybody and everything was unprepared, so I’m hopeful because next time we will use our experience that we gained now.
I am hopeful. I know until now I sounded a bit pessimistic, but in the end I think we are going to get over this… so I’m hopeful because next time we will use our experience that we gained now.