Abstract:

With the onset of Covid-19 pandemic many education institutions faced the urgent introduction of on-line virtual teaching and learning approaches. The University of Ruse, Bulgaria, has had extensive experience in such platforms, but the new challenge was successful foreign language teaching of a non-European language. The university has signed a collaboration contract with the Confucius Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria, for introducing Chinese language and culture at the so called Chinese classroom.

The paper examines feedback from teaching outcomes for Chinese language and culture learners and teachers at the Confucius Classroom, University of Ruse, Bulgaria. We invited 22 Chinese language learners – university students, university lecturers and local citizens, to fill in a questionnaire regarding their feedback of the virtual teaching methods during Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. We also interviewed the two Chinese teachers at the classroom about their feedback on the on-line teaching process.

Results showed that main obstacles to language learning were lack of face-to-face communication and group language tasks. Moreover, developing intercultural sensitivity for both teachers and learners was slightly diminished during on-line sessions. Language learners felt motivated to be more creative and time-manage better, while teachers had better opportunities to control discussions in class and emphasize self-preparation. Studying the foreign language also had some positive effects on overall emotional well-being of learners and teachers during lockdowns because feelings of isolation were reduced.

Overall, we suggest that foreign language teaching approaches in virtual environment should be further investigated because they influence the emotional well-being of learners and the sense of accomplishment in teachers.

Keywords:

Virtual learning, intercultural communication, foreign languages, student motivation, remote learning.