Context and Participants

The study was conducted in the College of Modern Languages (CML) of a large public university in central Mexico. The first author works in this college and is very familiar with the context. The second author works elsewhere but is often invited to teach courses and supervise theses there. The college offers face-to-face, online, and blended-learning degree programs. However, most of the students are enrolled in the face-to-face mode, which is also where most of the faculty teach. Faculty members teaching in the online and blended-learning programs are trained to do so. Training in distance education for the rest of the faculty was not offered when the COVID-19 confinement began and only began to be offered after the data for this study were collected.

The sampling process was voluntary (^{Hernández-Sampieri et al., 2014}). The researchers invited faculty and students of the face-to-face BA program in ELT to participate in the study via an email to the college’s listserv containing a link to a Google form (see below) on May 30^th, 2020. Due to the low number of responses, we asked the program’s coordinator to re-send the invitation. The students and faculty who answered the invitation by June 26^th were included in the study. The sample consisted of 26 faculty members (five men and 21 women) and 32 students (eight men and 24 women). The teachers’ ages ranged from 37 to 58 years old, and the students were 18-26 years old. All the students were enrolled in the face-to-face program at the beginning of the pandemic. Three of the teachers taught in both the face-to-face and online programs, and the remaining 23 only in the face-to-face program. In the excerpts below, the acronym PTs is used to identify participating teachers, and PSs to identify participating students.

Instruments

The participants who accepted the invitation received an informed consent letter and a questionnaire via email. Initially, we had planned to conduct an interview, but we discarded this idea due to time and Internet access constraints on the part of the participants. The questionnaire was adapted from that used in ^{Juárez-Díaz (2020)}. This questionnaire was designed to investigate EFL learning experiences at the college level. It was reviewed and validated by a panel of four Mexican and one Bolivian university professors with expertise and recognition in education and/or EFL, including this study’s second author. It includes questions about learning experiences as well as feelings, thoughts, and actions arising from the experiences. The wording of the questionnaire was changed slightly to focus on online learning and, for faculty participants, teaching. The two resulting questionnaires (one for teachers and one for students, see Appendix) were sent to the participants as Google forms in Spanish. The participants answered the questionnaire in Spanish, thus, the excerpts in the results section are translations.

Procedures

After the participants’ responses were received, the first author read them to make sure that they were clear and informative. She determined that two participating teachers had not provided enough information or the information they provided was not clear enough. Then, she contacted these participants by phone and asked them to elaborate on their answers. While speaking with them, she typed on the Microsoft Word files containing their written answers to capture the participants’ new information.

The participants’ responses were analyzed using semidirected qualitative content analysis (^{Hsieh & Shannon, 2005}). The first author read the participants’ answers without initially looking for the presence of any theoretical constructs. As categories began to emerge from similarities and differences across different responses (^{Hernández-Sampieri et al., 2014}), the first author noticed that many of them could be captured by existing constructs such as the two types of tutors or the three types of presence. She then began to reduce and label categories accordingly, while keeping the process open for other categories not present in existing frameworks. The resulting coding was audited by the second author, who read the transcripts and verified the applicability and consistency of the codes. The principle of saturation was reached so that only 32 out of 43 responses were considered for the study (^{Álvarez-Gayou, 2003}).

Teachers’ and Students’ Online Experiences

The data discussed below paint a picture of complex decision-making on the part of the teachers in the face of competing needs and no training for both teachers and students. This had a negative impact on students’ and teachers’ experiences and emotions, but a few were able to thrive thanks to their autonomous learning skills.

Confronted with the reality of ERT and the absence of clear institutional policies and support, the unexperienced teachers made an effort to learn how to teach remotely on their own. Most of the participants worked with Google Classroom, Schoology, WhatsApp, and email to send materials, assign tasks, and store students’ products. They had different reasons for using those platforms. Among those were ease of use and financial accessibility for themselves and for students who did not own a computer and/or did not have access to the Internet. Below are excerpts from the participants’ answers that show their choices and the rationale behind them:

I used Schoology because I needed a platform to organize my courses. (PT5)

I chose to work with Edmodo and assigned activities weekly. I decided not to work through video conferences because there were students who told me that they did not have the means or financial resources to be connected. (PT3)

I use asynchronous materials presentations, explanations, online resources…I used them because not all students have Internet at home or at their workplace, so they could access the materials whenever they managed to have an Internet connection. (PT12)

I use WhatsApp because, when users refill their data plans, they get free social networks, and this works for almost the whole student population. (PT1)

Teachers used those platforms to work online; they allowed teachers to send materials and tasks. They received, stored, and checked students’ tasks. They took advantage of the possibility to work synchronously or asynchronously according to their and the students’ conditions and limitations (^{Conceição, 2006}). In this way, teachers could give a chance to students to work when they could. The decision to promote learning through those tools suggests that teachers became cognitive tutors since they acted as content experts and focused on the construction of knowledge by concerning themselves with content delivery (Shield, Lamy, & Goodfellow, 1984, as cited in Shield et al., 2001). This is in alignment with extant recommendations for ERT in terms of prioritizing equal access to content (Hodges et al., 2020).

At the same time, the participants’ focus on making material available and gathering students’ products showed their lack of experience with online education. According to ^{Conrad (2004)} inexperienced online teachers tend to become content-oriented. This happened to most of our teacher participants as they focused on providing enough material to the learners, except those with training in online education. In other words, the type of interaction promoted by their online teaching was mainly student-material. Learner-learner and teacher-learner interaction, which is widely recommended for online education (^{Cundell & Sheepy, 2018}), tended not to occur due to the limitations inherent to ERT.

Using the platforms to distribute and store content seemed appropriate to many teachers as they thought that this allowed them to support students who did not have technological tools and/or had rigid work schedules. Although this is a good ERT practice per Hodges et al. (2020), many students found it unhelpful. Most students reported that most teachers only provided content and assigned homework without giving opportunities to ask questions. Thus, 54.5% reported disliking this way of teaching because they felt that they were on their own and did not learn as much as in face-to-face classes. Then, the absence of interaction and feedback did not fit these students’ perceived needs. This affected them negatively, leaving them with questions and with the experience of not having learned:

I have an endless number of assignments, I felt stressed out because I did not understand, and I just delivered things. I did not learn the right way. (PS10)

Teachers just overwhelmed us with assignments and personally, I didn’t learn anything. (PS11)

I feel like I’m not learning what I should learn. Many teachers only send homework and do not give any explanation as they used to do in face-to-face classes, and many times this is a bit complicated and confusing. (PS13)

I don’t understand the classes, the teachers only send activities. (PS14)

The teachers assign a lot of homework and don’t teach anything. (PS17)

Some teachers only sent the material and we didn’t have any support or comments in order to understand the topics accurately. (PS18)

This result is similar to ^{Allen et al.’s (2002)} finding that students learn less in online courses because such courses involve less teacher-student interaction than face-to-face classrooms do. According to ^{Rourke et al. (2001)}, it is necessary to integrate the three presences mentioned above in the learning experiences to reach the learning goals. Students’ experiences suggest that teachers mostly performed the teacher presence in the sense that they organized the content and activities in the course. However, students perceived that teachers left aside the cognitive presence, which helps to verify understanding and develop knowledge (^{Garrison & Vaughan, 2008}). As for the type of tutor, students’ reports that teachers mostly focused on content rather than interacting meaningfully with students or promoting meaningful student-student interaction dovetail with teachers’ own reports in suggesting that teachers were primarily cognitive tutors. Nevertheless, the focus on content was probably adequate in light of the recommended emphasis on content accessibility in ERT, its intrinsic limitations, and the digital gap in Mexico.

These students’ and teachers’ comments also show that the social presence was absent in the experience of learning and teaching online during the pandemic. The social presence is the basis for setting communication and motivating students to learn (Tinto, 1987, as cited in ^{Rourke et al., 2001}). The social presence creates a pleasant and productive community of learning. It increases encouragement and cooperation to learn (^{Garrison et al., 2001}). As teachers neglected this presence due to the training limitations inherent to ERT, the learning outcomes were affected. This is an undesirable but potentially unavoidable feature of ERT, particularly at its early stages.

In the context of planned online education, online teachers must fulfill three main responsibilities: organizing the course (e.g., organizing content, managing time), monitoring students’ understandings while promoting collaboration and reflection, and diagnosing learners’ needs (^{Garrison & Anderson, 2003}). Nevertheless, the experiences reported above by teachers and learners show that the teachers only took one responsibility out of the three they have as online tutors, which was organizing the course. They did not monitor students’ understandings or promote collaboration and reflection. Furthermore, teachers did not accomplish their third responsibility, which was to diagnose learners’ needs (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). These shortcomings are to be expected in ERT. They were compounded by the fact that, at first, the university did not implement any measures to diagnose learners’ digital literacy and autonomous learning needs to better prepare them for an ERT situation.

The students’ comments above suggest that those specific students (PS10, PS11, PS14, PS17, PS18) and others who made similar comments (PS7, PS9, PS12, PS23, PS26, and PS30) are somewhat dependent on teachers rather than autonomous. It seems that they make teachers responsible for their learning outcomes and prefer to receive information passively as, unlike other students, they did not report taking an active role in their learning. This finding matches that in ^{Mali (2017)}. ERT thus triggered an unfavorable learning experience in students accustomed to working in teacher-centered contexts.

However, not all students felt helpless in the face of minimal teacher support. A minority (21.8%)-exemplified by PS16, PS19, and PS24-overcame their learning difficulties by taking control of their learning process. Once they realized that interaction with teachers would be minimal or non-existent, they acted to learn and understand the topics by themselves. According to Grow (1991, as cited in ^{Narváez-Rivero & Prada-Mendoza, 2005}), self-directed students can learn with or without the help of an expert and move independently in the learning process. They plan, organize, carry out, and evaluate their learning. Thus, a few students took the responsibility of their learning outcomes, which is an essential characteristic of self-directed learning (^{Garrison, 1997}). Here are their reported experiences:

I sought more information on my own in order to learn. (PS16)

I learned by myself because online classes didn’t work for me. (PS19)

I am autonomous and due to the lack of support from some teachers, I had to search more information on my own. (PS24)

It was advantageous for these students to have self-directed their learning processes. This allowed them to experience learning despite the absence of the teacher presence and the social presence. They actively worked on their learning process and felt that they had learned. In other words, they became autonomous learners. Similarly, other studies have found that online learning helped students become autonomous (^{Çelebi et al., 2016}; ^{Herrera-Díaz, 2012}; ^{Mali, 2017}).

Although most of the teacher participants (54%) focused on providing material and assignments, a large minority (46%) used platforms that allowed them to interact, provide feedback and explanations synchronously, such as Zoom or Skype. They used these platforms to communicate with their students and monitor students’ understanding:

We connect via Zoom, we practice and upload work in a virtual room. I consider it the best way to have “face-to-face” explanations. (PT17)

I used Zoom for interaction…WhatsApp to have communication and build trust and motivation. (PT20)

I use WhatsApp, mail, Skype, or Zoom. It has been the most practical way I have found to communicate and guide content work. (PT21)

The use of platforms where virtual sessions could take place generated positive learning experiences in students. In contrast to those students whose teachers did not interact with them online, students whose teachers held virtual classes reported more positive experiences. They found it convenient to have video conferences to clear out questions, receive explanations, and interact with their teachers. Such interactions generated a positive learning experience. This finding is similar to the one obtained in ^{Muñoz-Marín and González-Moncada (2010)}, who found that students’ learning experience was positive when teachers guided them with technology use, provided feedback and individualized attention. Below are some students’ comments in this regard:

I like to have classes with Zoom because it has helped me to get answers for my questions. (PS1)

The online classes or videos with the teachers explaining helped me to learn. (PS4)

I learnt with the online classes, where I can interact with my teachers. (PS12)

I liked the online classes; they are easy to understand as they are similar to being in a classroom. (PS22)

I learned with the classes by video calls because the topics were explained to clarify the topics. (PS30)

In those experiences, the social, cognitive, and teacher presence were involved. Teachers made students feel as if they were working face-to-face with their teachers, and that helped them learn. ^{Rourke et al. (2001)} state that these three types of presences are vital for learning to occur. Besides, the participants found videoconferences useful to interact with teachers, clarify questions, address misunderstandings, and have a learning experience similar to that of a traditional classroom. ^{Candarli and Yuksel (2012)} obtained a similar result: Students work better with platforms that allow them to work alongside their teachers to construct knowledge.

Despite these positive student experiences, teachers reported that access remained a problem for other students. Teachers said that some students missed the online classes because they did not have a computer or Internet access to work virtually. The participating teachers volunteered the following comments:

Not all students have access to the platform or the Internet. (PT2)

Not all students connect to the videocalls; the Internet keeps malfunctioning. (PT4)

The lack of equipment affects students, they do not have computers to carry out activities remotely. Some students live in communities where access to the Internet is spotty. (PT7)

It is not surprising that students missed online classes in light of the fact that computer ownership and Internet access remain limited in Mexico (INEGI, 2019). This issue confronted not only the students, but also at least one teacher: “Not all of us have easy access to a computer or the Internet. I am contributing not only my effort to cover the contents, but also my resources, my computer, my connection” (PT12).

Teachers also mentioned that some students who took the virtual classes did not engage in them; their participation was low and they cheated on the tasks:

Some students only entered the session, but they did not participate. (PT10)

There are some students who registered as members of the platform, but they do not do any of the activities that I request. (PT13)

I noticed that students cheated on the tasks, they asked some relatives or friends to do their homework, they handed in perfect tasks and in a Zoom meeting where we talked about the exercise experiences, they couldn’t say their name or good morning in English. (PT22)

I scheduled my classes at 7 in the morning and 50% of the students did not log in. (PT11)

In online education, one of the teachers’ duties is to encourage students to be involved and engaged in the sessions. De los Arcos and Arnedillo-Sánchez (2006, as cited in ^{Rosell-Aguilar, 2007}) suggest that online teachers employ teaching strategies to increase students’ attention and interaction. Some researchers recommend telling students directly and precisely what teachers expect from them regarding engagement in discussions, attendance, and responsibilities in the learning process (^{Sharpe et al., 2006}). In this way, students might have a clearer idea of teachers’ expectations about their behavior, functions, and roles in the online learning experience. According to ^{Comas-Quinn (2011)}, online teachers must reconceptualize their and students’ roles and how they construct knowledge through online interaction. However, the rushed transition and the limited resources and support typical of ERT make it unrealistic to hold teachers to such high standards. In addition, the digital gap might make student participation impossible regardless of the strategies that teachers deploy. This problem demands an educational policy response at a higher level in order to train teachers to teach online in ERT circumstances and to reduce the digital gap. The next section turns attention to the participants’ feelings.

Feelings Toward Online Teaching-Learning

Most teachers (56%) reported that they did not like to work online. They preferred face-to-face classes whereas 42.30% of the teachers expressed that they like to work online. Teachers had both positive and negative feelings about online teaching-learning. Some teachers felt uncomfortable working online because of the problems they encountered in the teaching experiences. Teachers had to work harder and for longer hours than they did in face-to-face classes before the confinement. In other studies, teachers experienced the same problems related to increased work time and workload (^{Cladellas & Castelló, 2011}; ^{Comas-Quinn, 2011}; Weasenforth, 2001). The time demand and work overload generated negative emotional states such as feeling overwhelmed, annoyed, stressed out, tired, and frustrated. According to some researchers, negative feelings affect teachers’ performance and health. Work overload causes them anxiety and stress and their general welfare is affected negatively (^{Houlihan et al., 2009}). The participating teachers said:

Teaching online demands more time to prepare classes and follow up with each student in a personalized way, especially when there are large groups. (PT3)

I am overwhelmed with work. It is very demanding to work online. (PT10)

I am tired because the time I spend teaching has tripled. (PT13)

I feel stressed by everything, my students, my children, my house, the situation worldwide. (PT17)

It is crucial to prevent negative feelings because they cause mental and physical disturbances that affect teachers’ performance. Stress, nervousness, anxiety, and anger may have severe or chaotic consequences not only at work but outside work. Those feelings can lead to poor decision-making (^{Cladellas & Castelló 2011}).

By contrast, online teaching generated positive feelings in some participants such as satisfaction when teachers could develop new teaching strategies, learn about ICT, and apply their knowledge to ERT. This was true of the three experienced teachers but also of a few more. The former ones were comfortable because they already had online education training and experience; the latter adapted to the new way of working. They felt challenged to look for ways to continue working and being in touch with their students. When they witnessed students’ academic development, they felt satisfied and happy:

I feel satisfied, I think it was a beautiful experience where I learned new ways to teach. (PT26)

I feel comfortable, it is in fact a process that I have already practiced for 6 years. (PT14)

Unlike the teachers, who had more varied feelings on both the positive and the negative side, all participating students reported that the experience of learning online during the confinement triggered negative feelings in them. This was true even for those who felt that they had learned and interacted with teachers. The students felt stressed out, frustrated, overwhelmed, sad, unsatisfied, confused, anxious, bored, empty, and pressured. They attributed those feelings to the number of assignments, the lack of computer and/or Internet access, boring classes, and lack of understanding and learning. Similarly, online learning has been found to provoke negative feelings such as depression, anxiety, and disinterest in non-ERT contexts (^{Whitman et al., 1984}). It was to be expected that such negative feelings should increase in an ERT situation considering the uncertainties in education and life at large brought about by the pandemic (Hodges et al., 2020). The student participants expressed the following:

I feel frustrated, confused, overwhelmed, unmotivated because in online classes I am not learning effectively and it only generates excessive physical and mental fatigue. (PS2)

I am stressed out about the homework and worried about learning because online classes don’t work, and we weren’t ready for this. (PS19)

I feel stressed out because sometimes the technical failures of the Internet interrupt my online classes and I also feel that this tool has not been enough for my learning. (PS22)

Students felt stressed out from working online because they were not prepared for ERT, lacked autonomous learning skills and, in some cases, had inadequate ICT resources. These difficulties resulted in an increased cognitive and emotional burden as most students felt unable and were untrained to cope with the demands of ERT. When students feel stressed out, they can also feel disempowered. In turn, this might affect their performance, cognition, decision-making, and attention (^{Whitman et al., 1984}). Teachers’ reports of academic disengagement and difficulties with content appear to confirm these negative effects. However, as discussed above, some students met the challenges of ERT, overcame stress and felt an increased sense of competency.