Exploring EFL teachers’ instructional design and teacher-student interactions in secondary schools while implementing emergency remote teaching (ERT) amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: The experiences from China

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic from early Spring 2020 has profoundly influenced the teaching and learning mode among schools worldwide. The Chinese education ministry launched the “Suspending Classes without Suspending Learning” initiative to transit from traditional face-to-face (F2F) teaching to emergency remote teaching (ERT) at all levels of the education system. Teachers may find it challenging to adopt remote teaching instruction. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to identify emerging issues and provide support measures to both school administrators and front-line teachers. Drawing on the interviews with EFL teachers from three secondary schools in China and online class observations amid the ERT, this study aims to explore how the front-line teachers adapt their instructional designs and teaching materials for effective remote teaching and enhancement of teacher-student interactions in virtual classrooms. The findings suggest the EFL teachers demonstrated their commitment and creativity in facilitating their children’s remote learning. Teachers expanded their role and proactively adopted various digital approaches to restructure their remote teaching instructions and maintain the control of virtual classes. Nonetheless, the findings suggest that while the abrupt transition to ERT has posed challenges for teachers in teaching and classroom engagement, this has in the meanwhile provided a unique opportunity for teachers to enrich their digital literacy and remote teaching instructions. Implications are provided to better support teachers to conduct more effective emergency remote teaching for the duration of the crisis and beyond. Copyright © 2020 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.