THE UNFORESEEN ADVANTAGES OF REMOTE ESL/EFL CLASSES

Teaching ESL/EFL in a rather small, developing country has its challenges – most of the schools do not have proper IT equipment and the students are taught in the same way as students were over 20 years ago. With technology on the rise, the need for a technology-aided teaching process has become evident. Students expect certain technology-based activities during the teaching process. But, unfortunately, such activities cannot be implemented with the existing conditions. With the rise of the Covid-19, remote teaching became the sole teaching model in multiple countries, North Macedonia not being the exception. As teaching remotely slowly became the norm, students, some for the first time ever, took part in technology-aided activities and thoroughly enjoyed them. Although the pandemic has brought many disadvantages to education, one unforeseen advantage arose – students in North Macedonia engaged in online games and different activities that made ESL/EFL more interesting and exciting for them. This paper aimed to research students’ opinion on ESL/EFL classes during the pandemic. A questionnaire was administered to two classes of year 2 students from a local high school in Bitola, North Macedonia. The results showed that students find online classes interesting, due to the online activities that they find engaging and that they would appreciate more such activities during real-life teaching. Article visualizations: