Innovation in Language Learning

Since the severe outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, every aspect of life has been adversely affected at a global scale. Apparently, education itself is not an exception. With the aim of saving the situation, the Ministry of Education promptly decided to direct educational institutions all over the country towards distance learning. Although this mode of education is not a new approach in today’s technology-driven world, not all teachers were familiar with technology-mediated applications and well prepared for the sudden shift to virtual classroom environments. With the employment of survey questionnaire to 65 English teachers and in-depth interviews with 12 individual teacher participants, this paper aims to explore certain challenges facing the English teachers at a public university in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. The findings showed that most of the teachers found online teaching disadvantageous compared to its counterpart - traditional face-to-face teaching. Some difficulties shared by the teachers are anxiety over the use of technology, extra demanding work, lack of technical support, limited interactions with students, students’ lack of willingness and motivation to learn. Some practical suggestions will be presented for teachers on how to face and solve these challenges, specifically during and post Covid-19 period.