Many voices coming together: challenges of Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) in a translation virtual classroom at an Argentinean university

Oxford

Congreso; STORIES: Resilience, Resistance and Reflexibility; 2021

Universidad de Oxford, Departamento de Educación

The global crisis exacerbated by Covid-19 pushed many nations to the limits. The impact of the crisis was, and still is, strongly felt by most educational institutions. As university teachers and students return to the trenches new challenges lay ahead. The purpose of this presentation is to share some research findings which have enlightened the implementation of Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) (Hodges et al., 2020) in an undergraduate translation class during the 2020 lockdown. A qualitative research methodology was applied. In the first stage of research (previous to Covid-19), semi-structured interviews (Dörnyei, 2007; Patton, 2002) and qualitative surveys (Jansen, 2013) were applied to 143 students and the class teachers to gain insights into their views about the uses of the virtual classroom (Moodle) for b-learning. The findings guided the design of online classes during the 2020 lockdown, when we carried out the second stage of research. In this second phase, a descriptive inductive approach (Hatch, 2002) allowed us to discover patterns of interaction for translation teaching and learning through forum debates and live sessions. Interesting results emerge from the comparison of students? and teachers? views about the benefits and potential difficulties of the virtual classroom before the pandemic and class dynamics in the ERT mode, which seem to have encouraged the development of translation competence (PACTE, 2011) in an integral and sustainable way. In conclusion, as we reflect on our research and teaching practice, teachers´ and students´ voices are invaluable in helping us to adapt to this rapidly changing world.