Navigating the remote language classroom: Exploring teacher adaptation and student outcomes during COVID-19

Almost since the onset of emergency remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, studies examined how teachers and students adjusted to the change, including in language courses. Some of this research has explored language teachers’ self-efficacy and confidence in teaching remotely, and to a lesser extent how student language learning has been affected; most studies have not differentiated among languages taught or between different student age groups. Through a survey of 173 PK–16 language instructors in the United States who switched from face-to-face classroom teaching to remote teaching in the spring of 2020, the present study examines teachers’ perceptions of their success in transferring specific teaching skills to a remote teaching context and their perceptions of the effects of remote learning on their students’ language learning experience. Across the teaching skills respondents were asked to report on, a majority of teachers reported that their in-person teaching skills were at least somewhat useful for remote teaching, but PK–12 teachers were more likely to report poorer transfer of teaching skills than instructors of adult students. Across different aspects of the student learning experience, teachers of PK–12 learners generally reported a more negative impact of remote instruction on their students’ learning than instructors of adults, while teachers of less commonly taught languages reported a more positive impact of remote teaching on their students’ learning than teachers of commonly taught languages. Our results provide new evidence of differences in the remote language learning and teaching experience between different groups of students and teachers, and underscore the importance for teachers and schools to prepare generally for flexibility in teaching, which includes remote teaching.