Primary Language Teacher Development in the Aftermath of Emergency Remote Teaching

During the months of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers were obliged to switch to emergency remote teaching all over the world. While this distressing experience and its after-effects have been extensively researched in the past five years, relatively scant attention has been paid to foreign language teachers, especially those working in the primary grades of public education. This study is intended to occupy this niche with data supplied by a large sample of primary language teachers in Hungary. The research questions are aimed at identifying (a) the obstacles with which the respondents were confronted, and (b) the potentially beneficial carry-over effects of their newly acquired competences upon their return to the ‘real’ classroom. On the basis of questionnaire and metaphor data analyses, it turns out that the lockdown period negatively affected the respondents’ mental and emotional well-being. On a positive note, however, emergency remote teaching enhanced their professional development in general, and their familiarity with the technological advances available to foreign language education in particular.