Shift to Online Learning: Challenges or Gains?

Chen Jianzhu, Graduate of MATESOL (2019/20) – Senior Research Assistant in a language centre of a local university

Studying in the Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MATESOL) of The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) has been my valuable asset, especially in this tough year. The outbreak of pandemic transformed all physical lectures into online lectures, which made us difficult to adapt to this virtual learning mode in a short time.

The biggest challenge, at the beginning, was that I always ended up “multi-tasking” subconsciously because my mind drifted away easily. I would do something else while attending the online courses. Moreover, I did not have chances to meet with my fellow classmates face-to-face but heavily relied on online social networking applications. Less time could be spent with them and studied together for instant discussions and opinion exchanges.

Despite these unexpected experiences at first, I am still very grateful for having the great support from the academic and administrative staff for addressing those practical issues. The caring professors in the MATESOL programme recorded and uploaded lectures via Moodle, which provided a more flexible learning option as I could review the courses many times for deeper understanding and comprehending complicated teaching theories and practical pedagogies.

Lecturers also designed various discussion activities for interaction enhancement in distant learning where I could share my opinions regarding some interesting questions posted in online discussion forum and review the points which classmates made. To ensure a high level of students’ involvement and learning outcomes, lecturers also made inspiring and thought-provoking comments.

Although some traditional teaching pedagogies were not able to be fully demonstrated in online lectures, I still gained a lot from the MATESOL programme. I am currently working in education field and have adopted the ideas of peer study and online group discussion to improve my students’ concentration and enhance their interaction when doing online courses. I have also taken advantage of computer-based tools such as Corpora to encourage my students’ independent language learning. 

I highly appreciate the great support from the MATESOL programme when some unprecedented contingencies occurred in this year. It has never been a regretful decision for me to pursue my second Master degree here after seven-year English teaching, as I have experienced a delighted, fruitful and rewarding journey. I will take the gains to my future career and discover more from the language research.