Abstract:

Nowadays, when it seems that the threat of COVID-19 spread is weakening, there is a growing interest in understanding the results about what we have gone through as well as what benefits and downsides we have received. Recently, a lot of scientific works devoted to the results of the educational organizations forced transition to distance learning format have been published.

It should be noted that there is not enough works dealing with the future teachers’ training during pandemic period. This study attempts to research how teachers managed to cope with this challenge and which way pre-service Foreign languages teachers should be trained for work in such uncertain period when every school and every university were forced to change their teaching format from face-to-face to e-learning one. What are the benefits of e-learning format that should be taken in ordinary post pandemic studying process?

The Russian teachers training program involves the so-called educational practice, when pre-service teachers go to schools, where they first attend the lessons of experienced teachers, and then give themselves lessons to the schoolchildren under the guidance of schoolteachers. During the pandemic period, this was not possible, since all educational institutions were closed.

However, the educational process did not stop and the graduation of new teachers ready to start working at schools took place. In the course of this study, a survey of pre-service teachers and teachers of Moscow universities training teachers (The Kosygin State University of Russia, Moscow State Linguistic University, Moscow Pedagogical State University) has been conducted in which 163 people took part: 67 teachers, 96 students of pedagogical departments.
The students were asked questions about:
1) the ways of their training during the pandemic period,
2) difficulties they faced,
3) mode of training they finally prefer,
4) what positive things they can identify about distance learning,
5) what new knowledge they get thanks to distance learning,
6) what they missed most of all during the period of e-learning.

The teachers were asked questions about:
1) how they managed to form the competencies needed to future teachers for a pandemic period,
2) how they managed to train their students for work in such a situation.

These results indicate that along with the losses caused by the epidemic, such as the future teachers’ inability to practice their teaching at school the university students have the new opportunities to attend and analyze more online lessons than they could have attended in a real classroom for the same period of time when normal format of education. They practiced to give lessons and conduct extracurricular activities in a distant educational format.

As a result of the students’ teaching practice, a club was created where future teachers together with senior schoolchildren discussed the fictions chosen for their joint reading and analyzing in a foreign language. They mastered the e-learning methodology and explored the resources for facilitating the e-learning process. Educators realized the necessity of creating courses for e-learning education. Moreover, they have adapted or tried to find the ways of their adaptation to e-learning educational process. Most of students and teachers confirmed that all the necessary competencies can be formed when educating in a distance format but 87% of respondents spoke in favor of continuing education in a mixed format.

Keywords:

COVID-19, e-learning, teachers training, pre-service teachers, Foreign languages teachers.