Fostering interaction and motivation in EFL live virtual classes at university

Emergency remote teaching and beyond: Voices from world language teachers and researchers

Springer

Año: 2022; p. 235 - 257

This chapter outlines the main lessons we have learned from the use of digital tools to foster different modes of interaction and motivation in live sessions for EFL undergraduate students in a teacher training /translation university programme in Argentina in times of ERT. Due to lockdown constraints related to the Covid-19 pandemic, the course was taught through a virtual classroom and optional weekly online sessions for about 100 students. The main challenge of these online meetings was to create a motivating learning experience and promote language learning and interaction among participants who barely knew one another. Previous online learning research has shown that meaningful interaction of modes can improve learning outcomes. To foster teacher-student-content interaction in the live sessions, we combined various online resources such as Educaplay, Genial.ly and Quizziz and we applied Ryan and Deci?s self-determination theory in online education and Dörnyei and Csizér?s strategies for motivating language learners to foster students? motivation. This chapter presents some of the online activities that we designed and used in our live sessions together with their gains, challenges and students? feedback. It also presents possible forms of implementation in future diverse learning environments.