Recommendations of ELT Students for Four Language Skills Development: A Study on Emergency Distance Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic will not be easily forgotten as its contagious impact has penetrated education. In response to this, educational practices have moved online within various forms and terms, and Emergency Distance Education (EDE) is one of them. Within this frame, this qualitative study aimed to investigate the recommendations of 118 English Language Teaching (ELT) Department students for their teachers and for students themselves in developing four language skills—reading, writing, listening, and speaking—during EDE settings to improve the efficiency of the online courses. In doing so, Framework Method via NVivo 11 Plus was utilized. The participants’ recommendations for EDE included a total of 152 comments for reading, 141 for writing, 131 for listening, and 147 for speaking skills. The participants’ recommendations for four skills centered on a total of seven themes: for teachers, for students, for online platforms, for eliminating technical issues, satisfactory, no recommendation, and no answer. The data analysis demonstrated that the majority of the recommendations for each skill were given for teachers under two sub-themes: content and implementation. While content had the highest frequency for reading, writing, and listening skills, implementation was found to be the top concern for speaking skills. The results of the study presented valuable insights not only for ELT contexts but also for all language education settings.