A Pandemic in 2020, Zoom and the Arrival of the Online Educator

Abstract

When Covid-19 spread and became a serious health threat to the world in the earlier part of 2020, many university English language teaching (ELT) practitioners moved their classes online. Not only did ELT practitioners have to master the technicalities of an online application (e.g., Zoom), they had to go ahead without much foresight; teaching a full module online was basically unchartered waters for many of them. Moreover, it was largely unknown what impact an online module might have on student learning. This paper is about an academic writing module that was fully taught online in the National University of Singapore for the first time. It presents some of the changes made in the online mode, feedback from students on their learning online and recommendations. The data comes from the four classes of students (58 responses) I taught in the first semester of academic year 2020/2021 (13 weeks, Aug - Nov, 2020).