Pixel International Conferences

In December 2019, the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 suddenly emerged in China and has now spread in many countries around the world. As it was immediately declared as a pandemic, most nations in the globe, including Mexico, decided to start school closures in order to avoid risk of contagion among students, teachers and families.
The University of Veracruz started its school closure in late March to comply with the social distancing and lockdown instructions issued by Mexican authorities. With the implementation of this measure, all students and teachers moved to online sessions and activities.
This paper presents the description of the migration from the face-to-face modality to the virtual mode of a Basic English course at the Poza Rica Language Center. It focuses on the steps followed to carefully prepare students to work in a different learning environment. It also aims at knowing the participants’ opinion about online learning and virtual lessons during confinement. To achieve this aim, an action research qualitative study was carried out on 53 learners.
The study subjects were non-university students who attended courses aimed at the general public such as high school students, professionals and housewives. The results suggest a high acceptance of the work done by students who finished the course but they also show a high dropout rate.