Online Teaching of Productive Language Skills (PLS) during Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) in EFI Classrooms: A Phenomenological Inquiry

This study aims to explore the experiences of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in teaching productive skills during emergency distance learning (ERT) and the COVID-19 pandemic and their recommendations for teaching productive skills online. Phenomenological inquiry, which is one of the qualitative designs, was employed to conduct the study. It took place in the 2020-2021 academic year in Turkey. Participants of the study consisted of 16 English as a Foreign Language teachers. Convenience sampling was executed to designate the study participants. The main data collection tool was semi-structured interview questions and data was collected via individual interviews, a focus group interview and via form by e-mail. Content analysis was administered in the data analysis process. Study results explored teachers mostly agreed on the fact that online education had its advantages such as easy materials access and online tools and some disadvantages such as lack of interaction, lack of scaffolding, internet access problems and learner-related problems. Also, they stated that it was hard to engage learners during the process, so they used games, authentic materials, videos, discussions and web 2.0 tools to provide engagement. Teachers discovered new online platforms and tools to make their lessons efficient. They mostly suggested changing the assessment style, making participation compulsory and conducting activities that can engage learners in the learning-teaching process. Consequently, it was seen that teaching productive skills in ERT was challenging in terms of student participation; however, teachers found solutions to it and they thought it was not a bad idea to teach productive skills online, especially speaking. Accordingly, hybrid education can be considered in the future in teaching English and teaching productive skills.