ONLINE LEARNING AND THE STRUGGLE TO TEACH SPEAKING: INSIGHTS FROM JORDANIAN EFL TEACHERS

E-learning opens a new horizon within educational contexts worldwide. Previous studies showed a dearth of research identifying EFL teachers’ perceptions of EFL learners’ hardships in speaking skills. Hence, this article investigates the Jordanian EFL teachers’ perceptions of the current challenges of learning speaking skills EFL learners experience in an e-learning environment. The research instrument was a cross-sectional questionnaire delivered to 218 Jordanian EFL teachers. Descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA and an independent sample paired t-test were employed for data analysis. The results revealed that most Jordanian EFL teachers are aware of the current challenges of learning speaking skills in an e-learning environment. Such challenges involve a lack of vocabulary, motivation and self-confidence, grammatical mistakes, stress, anxiety and problems in pronunciation. Moreover, concerning research independent variables, the effect of gender and age did not record any significant differences whereas the academic degree and years of experience showed significant differences among Jordanian EFL teachers’ perceptions in favor of those who hold bachelor’s degrees (BA) and those who fall within the category of 5-10 years of experience. This paper recommends implementing remedial programs related to developing speaking skills