Abstract:

When the COVID-19 pandemic peaked first in March 2020, the uncertainties evaded all parts of human life. Education was not an exceptional field that could save itself from the negative effects of the pandemic. However, there were also some opportunities offered by the vast Distance Education Environment created after the pandemic as well. Atılım University, Department of Basic English (DBE), which offers a year-long intensive English preparatory program to its students before they start taking courses from their departments, was one of those programs that used the Covid-19 crisis to the advantage of the learning and well-being of their students.
First of all, a TV channel offering hour-long language games (competitions) for language learners for four days of the week under the names of “LetterWiz”, “Beat me If you Can”, “Just 4 Fun”, and “IQ lab” was set on Zoom. Winners of these competitions received online giftcards from a well-known bookstore located in Turkey.
Secondly, the Atılım University DBE instructors were asked to establish an online club based on their hobbies, or their favorite leisure activities. As a result, a total of 86 online clubs under three categories (Media, literature, leisure) were established. These clubs constituted the “My Own Club” component of the DBE Distance Teaching Program. Club descriptions were shared with students through padlet website. Then, students read the descriptions from the padlet walls created and registered themselves to the clubs based on their interests through a registration system created on Moodle and attended their club activities for two hours a week during the 8-week DBE Distance Teaching Program.
Thirdly, the students attending clubs were asked to prepare two outputs (once in 4-week time) based on their club topics. There was a need for a medium that the best club outputs could be shared with the public. For this purpose, www.juventude.life website was established. Then, the club instructors were asked to select the best outputs from their students and to submit them to the editorial team of www.juventude.life. From March 2020 to January 2021, there were 32 posts shared on the website and www.juventude.life received 1539 visitors and 6434 pageviews from 30 countries with the most visitors from Turkey, The United States, China, Austria, Germany, Portugal, France, and United Kingdom.
In this presentation, results of a five-item questionnaire on DBE-TV activities responded by 101 students who attended DBE-TV activities during the 8-week DBE Distance Teaching Program and another five-item questionnaire responded by 203 students who attended “My Own Club” activities, a 16-item questionnaire on DBE-TV, My Own Club activities, and www.juventude.life responded by 106 instructors will be shared. Briefly, the results indicated that DBE-TV, “My Own Club” activities, and www.juventude.life website were thought to be beneficial to the language learning process of the students and enjoyed by both the teachers and the students.

Keywords:

English language teaching, DBETV, Intensive English Programs, Online Clubs, www.juventude.life, student motivation, COVID-19