FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN CROATIA

Due to COVID-19 pandemic teachers in Croatia went from face-to-face to remote learning within a week in March 2020. At the beginning teachers questioned methodology of ICT usage and dealt with many other dilemmas. The schools in Croatia began with asynchronous teaching methods using Moodle based platforms such as Loomen, but also Yammer, MS Teams and Google Classroom, which were mostly used. As the time passed, more and more educators, started using Zoom as a platform for remote learning, especially foreign language teachers. From March 2020 till March 2021 teachers in Croatia went on and off remote and face-to face teaching, according to situation with the pandemics. The aim of this research was to see how foreign language teachers (German and English) in Croatian middle schools (working with 14-19 years old students) managed the changes from face-to-face and remote teaching and vice versa, according to the changes of crisis management in Croatia, and everchanging decisions working online or in person at school. In this survey teachers and students were asked about their experience with remote teaching and learning, and switching from one model to the other. This research addressed how the teaching / learning methods changed in a year, and how the teachers and students assess the learning outcomes and knowledge they got during remote learning / teaching. The students and teachers also assessed synchronous and asynchronous learning and teaching, and ICT tools used in remote teaching. The results show that most students and teachers prefer synchronous teaching / learning both in remote and face-to-face classes. Therefor platforms, which allow synchronous teaching should be developed and improved, as well as methods which can make online synchronous teaching / learning more successful. Especially when it comes to classes making more interesting and better achieving learning outcomes during remote learning / teaching. Also new ways and solutions for staying as much as possible in person in classes should be developed and considered.