online teacher professional development: efl pre-service teachers’ conceptions and strategy use in online classroom management

Online teaching has provided numerous opportunities for learning in different areas, benefiting different groups of learners. however, teaching various areas in online environments, especially language teaching, can be challenging since the roles of the instructors change, requiring qualified and eligible teachers. one of the important roles of online teachers is the managerial role. classroom management, which is significant for achieving effective learning, requires different strategies in the online environments, different from traditional classes. the objective of this study was to investigate efl pre-service teachers’ conceptions and strategy use in managing online english language classes. the participants of the study were 104 ma students of tefl at iran university of science and technology, 55 of the participants were taking online courses, and 49 of whom were students in face-to-face classes, which was transformed into online courses due to the covid-19 pandemic and university closure. one of the instruments of the study was an online classroom management questionnaire with 45 items which was developed by the researchers. the other instrument was a vignette-based survey which included 2 parts. the first part had 10 vignettes depicting challenging situations with 6 strategies. the participants were asked to prioritize strategies for managing the situations. the second part included 12 vignettes, and the participants provided strategies for managing the situation. the results revealed that time management, course organization, positive reinforcements, and building a positive atmosphere were conceived as the most important strategies for online classroom management. the findings also illustrated that the participants mostly used student-centered strategies in dealing with the challenges of online classes. this study recommended teacher-educators enhance pre-service teachers’ awareness of strategies for managing online language classes in teacher professional development courses and prepared online teachers to deal with challenging moments of online teaching, leading to effective english language teaching in online environments.

Online Teacher Professional Development: EFL Pre-Service Teachers’ Conceptions and Strategy Use in Online Classroom Management

Online teaching has provided numerous opportunities for learning in different areas, benefiting different groups of learners. However, teaching various areas in online environments, especially language teaching, can be challenging since the roles of the instructors change, requiring qualified and eligible teachers. One of the important roles of online teachers is the managerial role. Classroom management, which is significant for achieving effective learning, requires different strategies in the online environments, different from traditional classes. The objective of this study was to investigate EFL pre-service teachers’ conceptions and strategy use in managing online English language classes. The participants of the study were 104 MA students of TEFL at Iran University of Science and Technology, 55 of the participants were taking online courses, and 49 of whom were students in face-to-face classes, which was transformed into online courses due to the Covid-19 pandemic and university closure. One of the instruments of the study was an online classroom management questionnaire with 45 items which was developed by the researchers. The other instrument was a vignette-based survey which included 2 parts. The first part had 10 vignettes depicting challenging situations with 6 strategies. The participants were asked to prioritize strategies for managing the situations. The second part included 12 vignettes, and the participants provided strategies for managing the situation. The results revealed that time management, course organization, positive reinforcements, and building a positive atmosphere were conceived as the most important strategies for online classroom management. The findings also illustrated that the participants mostly used student-centered strategies in dealing with the challenges of online classes. This study recommended teacher-educators enhance pre-service teachers’ awareness of strategies for managing online language classes in teacher professional development courses and prepared online teachers to deal with challenging moments of online teaching, leading to effective English language teaching in online environments.