The Changing Paradigms of Teaching: Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic

SUMMARY This study attempts to explore two areas related to the closure of schools during Covid-19. It is a two-tiered exploratory study. Firstly, it investigates how secondary school English language teachers in the state of Kedah in Malaysia conducted online teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic. Data for this phase was collected using an online survey questionnaire via Google form. For the second phase, the study explores the efficacy of online teaching as the main mode of teaching in the future. Data for this phase was collected using an interview schedule distributed to three senior lecturers from three local universities in Malaysia. Both these areas have not been researched in Malaysia. As such this study hopes to fill the gap. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis approach. The findings will be useful to teachers to prepare themselves to teach online even in normal times. The education authorities in Malaysia can use the findings to revamp the teacher-training programmes as well as the in-service courses to prepare the teachers for the eventual shift of the traditional mode of teaching to the online modality. The trend will be the use of hybrid teaching form that will blend both the teaching modes to come up with a stronger and more effective teaching and learning process.