Event Date: 16th July 2022

Abstract:

This webinar focuses on how the shift to online teaching during the pandemic lockdown constituted an exemplary foundation for teachers to revisit their beliefs about teaching, integrate technology in their practices and embrace roles they have not undertaken before, and deal with mixed feelings about having to manage a new teaching mode. From this aspect, the pandemic provided an opportunity – rather than a hindrance – for teachers to re-experiment their teaching skills.

In this talk, the presenter shares their research results in line with these arguments and discuss how the pandemic has helped teachers reconstruct their existing teacher identities as traceable in their beliefs, roles, practices, and feelings.

She also presents their findings in relation to how the pandemic impacted English language teachers through the context of countries` digital readiness, geographical regions, and years of teachers’ experience. These online teaching experiences, they argue, are still important to reflect on to re-process and make sense of our learning as teachers, which can lead to further and deeper development.

Dr. Rhian Webb ends her talk with some implications for teachers and teacher educators to consider the role of post-pandemic sustainable teacher learning through critical self-reflection on their experiences during the lockdown.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Rhian Webb is a senior lecturer in TESOL at the University of South Wales (USW), UK. She has been working in the field for over 20 years, both overseas in Thailand, Australia, and Japan and in the UK. She currently teaches TESOL in USW’s English department to UK native speakers. Her current research about the digitalisation of English language teaching is being undertaken in collaboration with Professor Kenan Dikilitas from The University of Stavanger, Norway.