An analysis of face-to-face education versus emergency-remote teaching: Readiness of ELT teacher trainees

Since World Health Organization (WHO) declared the virus called COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020, the education system all around the world has gone into a total shutdown. Turkey was one of the countries that were negatively affected by this unexpected change of context. Emergency-remote teaching (ERT) was suddenly introduced to prevent the disruption of education and almost all countries adopted this alternative system that allows access to education through digital devices. Turkish teacher education institutions also switched to ERT during this phase. With the digitalization of education, being well equipped with digital users has gained more importance for student teachers studying in the English Language Teaching departments. Thus, the present study first aimed to find out the emergency-remote teaching experiences of ELT student teachers. The study also asked the 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students teachers to compare their ERT experiences and perspectives with that of the face-to-face education experiences they had before the epidemic. Secondly, the participants' readiness for and perceptions of ERT were scrutinized alongside analyzing the factors of student teachers' technical possibilities and digital competencies with their effect on readiness during this phase. The research took place in the fall semester of the 2020-2021 academic year, consisting of 194 English teacher candidates in their second, third and fourth years throughout Turkey. This mixed-method thesis study implemented four scales and a semi-structured interview to elicit rich information and thus provide a comprehensive and elaborate framework. Quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, independent samples T-test and one-way ANOVA analysis in SPSS while the qualitative data were transcribed, coded and presented with a flow chart. The findings showed the extent to which emergency-remote teaching shaped English student teachers' experiences, choices for a face-to-face context, readiness for online learning and remote learning perceptions. Although student teachers indicated neutral opinions about their ERT experiences, they are inclined to prefer face-to-face education. In addition, student teachers seem to exhibit a moderate level of readiness for ERT, which seems not to have been influenced by their perception of ERT, technical opportunities and digital competencies. The reason for this fact is that student teachers have already been familiar with the use of digital devices before the lockdown. Therefore, these factors did not have any significant effect on their overall readiness for ERT. The study also reported the strengths and weaknesses of the ERT in Turkish teacher training institutions. The results of the study have provided implications for teacher education programs and teacher educators regarding how better prepare them for wider use of digital educational technologies in the near future.