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Description
The popularity of online teaching and learning has led to significant changes in the educational landscape, particularly in the primary school contexts where both teachers and young learners are found to experience some challenges in their adaptation to this new mode during the pandemic and post-pandemic periods. The situation has called for teachers to enhance the knowledge and skills necessary for effective online instruction. The current study aimed to explore how teachers of the English language identified their professional development needs in relation to reflexive and interactive positioning in their practice of delivering online lessons. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with a cohort of five in-service primary school teachers. The findings indicated that teachers expressed their needs for (1) a deeper understanding of the psychological, physical, and behavioral aspects of pupils in the online learning setting, as these aspects were less explicit than in traditional classrooms. Additionally, the participants were interested in (2) techniques to facilitate personalized learning and (3) strategies to communicate with students’ parents. These needs were closely connected with how teachers positioned themselves as facilitators, pupils as potential online learners, and parents as a source of pressure. Discussions and implications of the study focused on the significance of incorporating teachers’ voices in the development of effective professional training programs and students’ age-related characteristics as a learning resource for teachers.
