Conference Agenda

This work is part of a broader project that seeks to know and understand how teachers shape their teaching practices. The COVID19 pandemic, the lockdown and the years that followed, posed a major challenge in the field of education: from the design and implementation of proposals in non-face-to-face contexts, the uncertainty about the day-to-day, to the social distance and the restrictions on teacher-student and student-student interaction. These factors had a significant effect on multiple variables that had repercussions on the way in which teachers configured the action of teaching. This paper therefore tries to understand precisely how change during this period impacted on teachers' teaching, their decisions and anticipation of their professional practice in the future.

Research on teaching during pandemics has shown how teachers faced methodological and organisational challenges in adapting to non-face-to-face teaching (König, Jäger-Biela & Glutsch, 2020), creating teaching materials adapted to the new learning contexts in which their students were placed (Van Lancker & Parolin, 2020), increasing the time spent on lesson planning and complexity (Spadafora et al. 2023) or making decisions about the different elements of the curriculum.

These curricular elements over which teachers constantly make decisions were also affected. Perhaps the most obvious of these were the materials and resources on which teaching work is based, which were radically transformed by the move to non-face-to-face teaching in which, for the most part, digital technologies mediated the teaching process (Masry-Herzalah & Dor-Haim, 2022) in terms of uses, formats and participation. Likewise, in general, the tasks that teachers address in their interaction with their students in real teaching contexts were significantly modified, changing the usual interaction situation to situations mediated by digital media or materials for the most part. Although the elements on which the tasks are configured may remain (objectives, contents, actions, time), the modification of the channel and the medium affected the conditions of interaction, the agents involved, the spaces and even certain professional functions of teachers such as evaluation (Zaragoza, Seidel & Santagata 2023). The elements, therefore, on which teachers make their professional decisions were changed precipitously by the lockdown, and also in the post-confinement period were significantly affected. Throughout this period, much of the responsibility for shaping the elements of teaching practice fell on teachers. In these circumstances, professional teaching practice was largely disrupted by the transformation of regular teaching practice into a practice outside the classroom or a practice marked by social distance or largely individual work in which classroom routines had to be modified and the judgement about the extent and the how of this modification rested primarily with the teachers.

On the basis of this accumulated knowledge on the subject, we set out the following objectives in this paper:

- To examine which elements of the teaching practices were affected during the teaching process as a result of the lockdown and new normality, analysing it through the content of the explanations elaborated by the teachers themselves.

- To investigate the assessments that teachers make of their professional practice during the lockdown and the new normality by analysing the contents of their own descriptions.

One of the most significant impacts of the pandemic was the further diversification of learning environments and learning opportunities. The series of lockdown periods led to a significant shift towards virtual learning environments and technology-mediated language learning, where language learning autonomy gained a more important role in the success and efficiency of foreign language learning. Researchers have confirmed that the success of foreign language learners who learn the target language only in institutional or classroom settings is limited (Benson and Reinders, 2011, Murphy 2008, 2011). An increased interest in examining out-of-class learning environments is based on the shift in second language acquisition research: language acquisition is no longer understood as a merely cognitive process but rather as participation in various social contexts and communities (Benson and Reinders 2011).

The very general and the most traditional definition of learner autonomy is taking responsibility for one’s own learning (Little 2007). This responsibility is connected with the individual’s ability to understand what one is learning, why one is learning, how one is learning and which learning strategies and language use strategies one is using. Learner autonomy is mentioned many times as a synonym of self-regulated or independent learning, learner’s independence or learning outside the classroom.

There are three fundamental perspectives on learner autonomy in language education: the technical perspective (focusing on skills or strategies used during unsupervised learning), the psychological perspective (emphasizing attitudes and cognitive abilities that enable the learners to take responsibility for their own learning process) and the political perspective (emphasizing the emancipation of learners by giving them opportunities to select the content of learning and the ways and forms of learning processes) (Benson 1997, Palfreyman and Smith 2003). Paying attention to all three perspectives on learner autonomy and enhancing autonomous learning is crucial not only during the times of pandemics but also during the uncertain times of economic and educational challenges, migration, segregation of socially disadvantaged learners and the threats of war. Educators need to equip learners with skills and competences that empower and help them in times when their learning becomes less teacher-centred, the degree of instruction is lower and the need to make decisions on their own learning process is higher.

The paper attempts to answer the following research questions:

- To what extent did learning English as a foreign language (EFL) during the Covid-19 pandemic become less instructional and more learner-controlled in the case of secondary school learners in schools with Hungarian language of instruction in Slovakia?

- To what extent did EFL connected out-of-class learning activities change during the Covid-19 lockdown period?

- What further support can be provided by schools in order to enhance EFL learners’ autonomy?

The aim of the paper is to find out how online teaching and the pandemic affected the foreign language learning strategies and the foreign language use of secondary school learners. The online ‘Covid period’ in Slovakia starting from October 2020 and running to April 2021 is investigated. The platforms for synchronous online lessons that were used for teaching English as a foreign language classes during this period are examined together with the respondents’ goal of language learning. Critical reflection and making meaningful choices are inevitable parts of becoming an autonomous learner, therefore, the respondents’ consciousness in selecting certain tools as well as their attitude to certain language learning strategies are examined.