Prevailing aspects of virtual English language education in the rise of the pandemic

Abstract

This article aims to identify the key aspects of the establishment of virtual education in the English language during the boom period of the pandemic. The methodology used is qualitative with the use of an interview to a teacher of English and a teacher specialized in educational digital platforms. In addition, a survey was used with 40 students of 10th grade of basic general education to determine if they really feel that their learning process has been relevant to the one hundred percent virtual education that was part of the guidelines issued in the pandemic by COVID-19. The results showed that both teachers and students are clear that virtual education did have shortcomings in the English language learning process, due to aspects such as the lack of personalized interaction between teacher and student, as well as other aspects that are evident was the lack of digital resources on the part of students or poor connectivity in their homes, which of course was also detrimental to the learning of English, since being a language and not a discipline requires the promotion of active strategies such as the use of MOOCs (massive online courses) to enter a virtual context of meaningful learning of English. It is concluded then that there were disadvantages in virtual education at the height of the pandemic, but also benefits such as time savings, as well as the streamlining of learning processes from the use of virtual education and its active methodologies.