Teacher and student views on secondary english course in distance education

The purpose of this study is to reveal the views of teachers and students in a distance education secondary English course. The research was conducted using a phenomenological approach. The study group of the research consists of teachers who taught middle-school English courses through distance education during the 2020- 2021 academic year and 12th grade students who took the English courses online. The study group was determined based on a purposive sampling method. A semi-structured interview form was used as a data collection tool. The form was prepared by the researcher based on the SWOT analysis questions. Interviews with the participants were conducted face-to-face. The data obtained from the interviews were evaluated and interpreted using content analysis method. When the results of the research were analyzed, it was concluded that teachers have psychologically been negatively affected by the pandemic and that they think that this process has both positive and negative aspects professionally. It has been concluded that the situations that this process will create in the future will be more of a threat than an opportunity. The students, on the other hand, focused more on the academic success side of this process and mentioned that both some of their English skills developed more and some of the flexibilities made in education due to the pandemic were beneficial for them. However, it was also mentioned by some participants that being an exam student in this process distracted them from English.