Abstract:

The paper analyses the changes and innovations in pre-service English language teacher training in Slovakia during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has greatly influenced education all around the world. The ministry of education allowed never-before-seen real-life changes to the way universities prepare pre-service English language teachers, including passing the final exam and defending the thesis online. The project compared three platforms which were approved for online teaching and testing at Slovak universities: Moodle, Zoom and MS Teams. Furthermore, data collected from the students, pre-service teachers, and in-service teachers were analysed in order to submit results indicating both positive and negative effects brought on by the innovative ways of teaching. The negative effects that were reported, included lack of social contact with fellow students and colleagues, need for active live discussions with professors, chaotic transformation from in-person lectures and seminars to online platforms, increased stress and anxiety levels during online oral exams, and technical difficulties on both sides. The positive effects included the innovations triggered by the necessity of online teaching and testing, which has led to accelerated upgrade of the already existing online educational and training platforms. The respondents also appreciated greater learner autonomy, clear instructions on the criteria for passing each subject, and improvements in their time-management skills, less time spent traveling from and to university, and quite surprisingly, improvements in personal relationships. From an educational perspective, the study served as an immediate feedback and thus has allowed the improvements to be implemented in record time.

Keywords:

COVID19, teacher training, ELT, university students, online teaching, distance learning, MS Teams, impact.