Pixel International Conferences

In March 2020 the global teaching community went online, literally, overnight! The impact of the restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic was profound. The idea of “the expert ELT online teacher” was also powerfully transformed by this. The frontline of ELT online teaching became a long frontier across the world with many “untrained soldiers'' who literally had to struggle for their “online classroom survival”. The DNA of traditional teaching (and ELT) professions was altered.Many of these “inexperienced online teachers” not only managed to survive but also returned from this frontline as winners. They learned the hard way by having to adapt face to face language learning curricula  into online versions, to learn how to use technological tools that they had not known existed, to fight new diseases like “zoom fatigue” or “online burnout”. Finally, they faced significant psychological pressure, put on them by themselves, their students and, in many cases families.From this daily adaptability of training and challenge, resilience emerged and we have seen the emergence of a new ‘teacher species’. This is the ELT online teacher practitioner. Someone not labeled as an “expert” but someone who has become a fully prepared skillful profession already to deliver online ELT classes at any time, for any level, to any age group.This paper will pinpoint pivotal practices fostered and delivered by the aforementioned practitioners, in English language teaching contexts, as they emerged during this whole new teaching process. It will explore the effectiveness of these practices with testimonies, examples and scientific references. These practices refer to:

• online presence
• content preparation and delivery of successful ELT lessons
• effective online tasks that promote communicative language objectives
• ways of assessing language learning objectives
• online engagement techniques for social connection in teacher- parent relationships.

The paper will serve as a point of reference or as a comprehensive, fundamental outline manual for ELT teachers who would like to enrich their existing online classes or start teaching online. The pandemic is gone but online teaching is here to stay. Having been forged under such difficult circumstances, during COVID-19, it might be the time for it to be massively fortified, widely spread and skillfully practiced by the vast majority of ELT teachers.

Keywords ELT, online, practitioner, pivotal practices, manual

References 1. [De Cotto, I., & Estaiteyeh, M. (2022, March 28). Transitioning to Online Teaching During the COVID‑19 Pandemic: an Exploration of STEM Teachers’ Views, Successes, and Challenges. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 1(31), 340-356. 10.1007/s10956-022-09958-z
2. Merrill, S. (2020, March 19). //Teaching Through a Pandemic: A Mindset for This Moment. // - Edutopia. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-through-pandemic-mindset-moment?fbclid=IwAR0qlQ_gFoLCY-_KfzgMh7hkSInKMEWF-2qrPewy8-C8WOKxpBHlJNF3k5U
3. UNICEF. (2020, September -). Education and COVID-19 - UNICEF DATA. UNICEF Data. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://data.unicef.org/topic/education/covid-19/#status