Extending blended learning and the roles of technology to meet teacher-training needs in the new normal

The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic to Ireland in March 2020 brought changes in all aspects of society, and caused significant disruption to the traditional delivery of education at all levels. The forced shift to online learning exposed dramatically different levels of preparedness and willingness for online teaching not only among teachers but also within and across departments, faculties, and institutions. This study first describes that tumultuous, and ongoing, period in Irish third-level education, and goes on to identify and describe the exact role/s of technology as well as the technological and pedagogical lessons learned from the enforced switch to online methods of delivery. We will explore the implications for CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) theories, processes and practices in relation to teacher education and training. Dedicated and non-dedicated CALL software will also be assessed in determining the various roles of technology in this context.
The study uses a mixed-method approach, combining surveys, semi-structured interviews and corpus linguistic analysis of teacher trainers, in-service language teachers, and trainee teachers, to explore the attitudes and perceptions of the participants regarding their state of preparedness for a shift to online learning and the central role of technology therein. The authors use the findings of this study to make a number of recommendations regarding changes in the teacher education curriculum to ensure future teachers are appropriately prepared to deliver educational content not only in this period of Covid-19, but also in a post-Covid world, as the New Normal will continue to see greater use of online resources than in the past.
Firstly, there is a need to adequately equip language teachers with the technological and pedagogical competencies to re-evaluate online programme delivery (e.g. Flipped Learning Approach, Virtual Exchanges, Podcasts, blogging and use of Social Media), to better cater to the affordances and constraints of online learning on different technological devices. Secondly, the authors will advocate that the teacher-training curriculum emphasizes a more permanent blended learning approach which includes online presence across modules as a matter of course. Such changes will result in future teachers’ educational practices being relatively unaffected by future public health crises, and will result in increased teacher comfort in implementing online teaching as part of their teaching practices. Finally, the authors will discuss the importance of both trainee and in-service teachers developing Critical Digital Literacy (Murray et al, 2020) in effectively evaluating the exact role of technology and thus ensuring the success of increased integration of different forms of online teaching.