Online Teachers: Stepping out of the Comfort Zone Is a Must

(Amina Abdelhadi)

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Abstract

The urgent shift to the online instructional environment has produced unprecedented challenges for teachers and placed new obligations on them. In this context, the study at hand investigated higher education teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of online teaching, their readiness to teach online and their willingness to teach outside their comfort zone. To this end, an online survey was conducted with 24 EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers from various Algerian universities using a questionnaire created in Google Forms. The obtained results reveal that the majority of the EFL teachers perceive online teaching as less effective than face-to-face teaching due to three key factors: technological constraints, learners’ unpreparedness, teachers’ technophobia and health issues. Though it was mandatory for them to teach online at the beginning of the lockdown in March, the teachers’ responses imply a low level of personal and contextual readiness, which, in turn, affected their willingness to teach online. This study highlights the correlation between teachers’ readiness and willingness to teach online. It indicates that a high level of readiness can help the teacher adapt to the change, reduce resistance and ensure the constant extension of their comfort zone. This study ends with some practical suggestions and a number of opportunities for future research.

KEYWORDS
higher education, online course, perception, readiness, resistance, willingness

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References

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