Innovation in Language Learning

Due to the disruptive effects of the pandemic and natural disasters we have  experienced globally, the stones laid on the path of education have been removed [1] When the pandemic started and schools were closed, overnight, parents found themselves to be the facilitators of education in the home environments, for the physical classrooms found their ways to the virtual classes.

Under the circumstances, the role of the parent has shifted from the maternal responsibility of sending the child to school to organizing the whole education by adapting home to a learning environment. Some parents even felt the need to “observe, guide, and encourage” their children to adapt to the new condition, for they noticed that children did not “own” the responsibility of  learning.

This study focuses on the effects of the pandemic on the parents’ part: their attitudes towards these unpredicted events unfolding before them abruptly, and the challenges [2] they had with the advent of distance education. The main focus of this research is the solutions parents provided to compensate for [3] the language learning courses that their children missed during distance education.

As for the research tools, an open-ended questionnaire was sent to twenty parents, who volunteered to take part in this research, through an online data collection tool. As the next step, the data were processed and a small scale focus group was formed for further discussions and triangulation. As the final step, a face to face meeting was organized to evaluate the findings and to share experiences. The findings point to the practical solutions parents found for their kids to utilize in necessary circumstances. The research drew a sketch of parents’ involvement as for language teaching, which can be generalized to other disciplines.