Online English teaching conference highlights effective methodologies amid pandemic

HCM City (VNS/VNA) - International and local English lecturers have discussed teaching methodologies during a recent outline conference as the COVID-19 pandemic has interrupted teachers’ traditional face-to-face classrooms and shifted into e-learning settings.

Dr Ho Thi Quynh Nhu of Hue Industrial College said that adjusting the curricula to sustain the quality of teaching and learning becomes an urgent need in most countries.

Lecturer Nguyen Cam Nhung at the University of Languages and International Studies under Vietnam National University in Hanoi said that there were a number of challenges that teachers encountered in adapting to remote teaching, such as technological issues, classroom management, and material adaptation.

This was revealed from her study aimed at shedding light on how Vietnamese teachers who teach English as a foreign language respond to remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a study conducted by lecturers of Saigon University Vietnam and HCM City University of Technology and Education, many universities in the city have invested to set up infrastructure for online education. To guarantee students to be able to track their learning along with online classes, Learning Management System platforms are quickly brought into use.

Nicky Hockly, director of Pedagogy at The Consultants-E, an online training and development organisation in the UK, said: “Although videoconferencing platforms are easily accessible these days, it can be challenging for teachers to engage and motivate students in live online classes.”

In her presentation, Hockly spoke about how to create live online tasks, key online teaching skills, and engaging online classes. 

Prof. Yilin Sun, who directs faculty development programmes at Seattle College in the US said: “Our life and work as TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) educators have changed significantly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As we cope with the many pandemic disruptions and fight against Coronavirus fatigue, educators must build confidence, skill and strategies to face new challenges and continue our actions and innovations to be successful in the new realities that define our professional and social lives.”

She also shared practices and applicable strategies to help English language teaching educators broaden their professional horizons and deepen their understanding of essential teaching strategies and skills during challenging times.

The OpenTESOL International Conference series was established in 2012 by the Faculty of Foreign Languages and the Graduate School of HCM City Open University.

OpenTESOL is a conference for local and international professionals in the field of foreign languages teaching and learning. It aims to establish a quality hub for sharing ideas of appropriate pedagogies in different teaching and learning contexts.

It has strengthened ties between the foreign language teaching communities in the city and other provinces in Vietnam and connected local communities with international language education institutions or associations.  

State-of-the-art research into language and language education was also presented at OpenTESOL./.