Abstract:

When the pandemic first peaked in March 2020 in Turkey, there were many questions most managers could not answer. During those days, Atılım University, Department of Basic English (DBE) also had to deal with the difficulties and uncertainties without losing the quality of the education they provide their students with as all other departments. It was a demanding endeavor to do so with a group of more than 100 instructors and 800 students because courses in DBE were leveled and multi-sectioned courses in which a common curriculum had to be followed fully synchronized with each other. Moreover, nearly all rules had to be changed during the shift from face to face to remote learning and teaching. These made the setup of an instructor motivation team and information share through a leadership system mandatory. Therefore, an instructor motivation team of 5 instructors was set up (offering a short radio channel activity, along with yoga, Portuguese, karaoke, and cooking classes) and these instructors organized motivational activities every day of the week during the 8-week Distance Teaching Program of Atılım University, DBE. Moreover, the instructors of Atılım DBE were divided into teams of 4 including a leader who had strong technical skills. Teams met frequently as all new information was taught to the leaders and leaders had to teach their teams accordingly in a very short time.
This presentation is about an intensive English preparatory program at the university level getting out of uncertainties with the help of an instructor motivation team and a leadership system. The findings based on a questionnaire of 15 Likert type and 5 open-ended items responded by 81 instructors will be shared with the audience. The findings briefly indicated that the instructors enjoyed their time during instructor motivation team activities and benefited much from the leadership system; however, they had concerns about their continuation after the pandemic.

Keywords:

Intensive English Program, English language teaching, Instructor Motivation Team, the leadership system, instructor well-being, COVID-19.