School of Languages at XJTLU Conference 2024

Since the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the global adoption of remote language education, research on the future of online language teaching has burgeoned. But scant attention has been paid to the relationship between student readiness and teacher beliefs. This presentation reports the findings of a mixed-methods study conducted in 2021 with 309 world language teachers, including 77 Spanish teachers, 50 Chinese teachers, 16 Japanese teachers, and other teachers of French, German, Italian, etc., in the U.S. after their remote teaching experience.
A Principal Component Analysis of the survey data revealed three constituting factors of teachers’ perception of student readiness: technological access and proficiency, use of online learning support, and students' self-discipline. Students' readiness positively correlated with teachers' self-confidence (r = .52) and teachers’ belief in online teaching efficacy (r = .38).
Approximately 50% of teachers expressed an increased willingness to embrace fully online (149/309) or hybrid (148/309) language teaching after their remote teaching experience. Perceived student readiness significantly predicted teachers' increased receptiveness of both hybrid (X2 = 53.471, p ＜ .001) and 100% online teaching (X2 = 87.713, p ＜ .0001).
In follow-up interviews, teachers confessed having “shared learning curves” with the students during remote teaching. Qualitative analysis of the transcripts suggests intertwined relationships between student readiness, teachers’ self-confidence, and their changing attitude towards online teaching. In addition, students’ readiness and, in turn, teachers’ increased receptiveness to online teaching were dependent on institutional and student group differences.
The results are compared to earlier findings on students' remote learning (e.g., Rüschoff, 2023), illuminating how teachers’ and students’ experiences evolved as they both adjusted to remote teaching. We conclude by discussing the implications for providing flexibility and support for future online language education for diverse populations.