Language teaching in times of Covid-19: the emotional rollercoaster of lockdown

Abstract

In this chapter, we report on the impact that the COVID-19 crisis has had on language teachers from a wide range of teaching backgrounds in the short and long term. We do so by presenting the results of a survey to teachers about their experiences of changes brought about by the health emergency. The teachers surveyed (n=64) have experience working part time in a fully online institution but also work in a wide range of traditional educational contexts, including private language schools, state schools and tertiary educational institutions in Catalonia, Spain and other countries around the world.

We report on teachers’ perceptions of how the COVID-19 crisis affected their emotional state, and how it impacted their online teaching practice and their face-to-face teaching. We also show how these teachers’ experience of working part time in a fully online context contributed to the emergency adaptations they made in their other institutions. We also surveyed these teachers’ online students (n = 307) about how they were affected. Finally, we conclude with a brief account of these teachers’ coordinators and how they experienced the crisis, what actions were taken in the virtual staff-room in relation to the coordination of teachers and the considerations taken during the decision-making process to support teachers through the emergency period.