Impacts of online education during COVID-19 on teaching English in rural state schools in Türkiye

Abstract

It is a commonly experienced fact that teaching English as a foreign language in rural areas is challenging for language teachers around the world. This study explored the actual challenges that teachers of English faced at rural state schools before and during COVID-19. To find out the regarding problems, an open-ended questionnaire was administered to 46 participants working at public schools as teachers of English in different regions of Türkiye. Additionally, to have a deeper understanding of the challenges that teachers of English faced during COVID-19 period, the reports from the focused group discussions were analyzed using content analysis. The discussions were held by 29 teachers of English working in the same rural district. The results revealed that teachers had some common difficulties deriving from school facilities, poor infrastructure, inadequate technology, instructional materials, students’ language levels, attitudes towards language learning and teacher competencies. The study also shed light on the positive impacts of the online education on teaching English as a foreign language in rural areas during COVID-19 pandemic in relation with the technological challenges and its effect on decreasing the urban-rural divide.