COVID-19 Pandemic’s Impact on English Teaching

Abstract

The objective of this exploratory mixed-methods study is to analyse the perspective of Spanish Primary Education teachers of English working in Cordoba (Spain) on teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) both during and after the lockdown that took place in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Primary Education EFL teachers who were working during and after the lockdown with the objective of identifying similarities and contrasts between how English was taught before, during and after the pandemic. Following the Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), the participants’ responses (n = 11) were analysed and classified into general categories and subcategories in order to explore their views on aspects such as methodologies, materials, assessment tools and criteria, organisation with other teachers, relationships with families and the comeback to regular classes. The results show that all participants used the same kind of materials (e.g., LiveWorksheet, Google Classroom, WhatsApp), the majority of them did not carry out online meetings nor did they give a lot of weight to the results of the last term, and they all agreed that online teaching was a lot more work and less enjoyable from both sides: teachers’ and students’.