Online Teacher Training for Global Teaching Contexts – Can E-learning Help Develop Better Language Teachers?

Abstract

During the two-year pandemic period all university education, including language teacher training, was conducted exclusively in the online mode. While for many instructional contexts transition to the online mode meant decreasing the effectiveness of instruction due to lack of physical contact and greater time consumption for materials development, it became clear that skillful use of e-learning tools and procedures might give university education a boost. The paper will put to test the research hypothesis that using social professional networks, composed of participants who are familiar to one another outside the course but become new personas inside it, will have a positive effect on the involvement of teacher trainees in pursuing teaching qualifications, evidenced in their increased participation in methodology-oriented tasks in different modes. This will be illustrated with examples from the Foreign Language Teaching Methodology online course for undergraduate applied linguistics students which blended synchronous and asynchronous interactions in different Moodle activities.