Instructors’ Perspectives on Pre-service Online Teaching Education

biggest problem in their motivation and in their participation. So, it doesn't matter how hard we try unless they know what it takes to learn a language and what it takes during an online

process. We cannot be successful in trying to make them participate in our classes. So, I guess that should be number one priority.” For the problem-solving item, P2 and P3 assigned the number 7 while P1 assigned 4 which could be considered similar. P1 put forward that: “I think problem-solving is a very general term, it's about like everything. If you have a problem with participation, you need to solve that problem. If you have a problem with technological tools you need to solve the problem. So, I think it is one of the most important ones.” Lastly, it is

outstanding that none of the instructors gave priority to institution’s expectations and P1 explained it in this way: “Because we are given materials, we know what we are supposed to teach, when we get the materials, when we look at the syllabus, etc. That's why; it doesn't need to be in the teacher training content necessarily.”

4.2.8. Instructors’ Perspectives on Pre-service Online Teaching Education: In this

instructors suggested including a separate skills lesson for online teaching in the curriculum. 2 instructors proposed including the matters of online assessment, psychology and problem solving for online lessons in the curriculum. Finally, how to teach students to be an online citizen, online environment and teaching concept in general, variety in online education, time management in online lessons and the rationale behind educational technologies were each mentioned by one instructor who thought that it would be plausible to teach them to the students who would be English language teachers.

Table 20

Pre-service online teaching training contents proposed by the instructors

Codes N Sample Excerpts

Usage of some technology and tools 7 Which platforms to use and which tools to be used with those platforms and how to use them more effectively.

(Ins9)

Student participation 6 The problems like decreasing teacher talk and increasing student talk in online classrooms. (Ins9)

Student motivation 6 For example, we can include some

research about motivation of learners during online teaching period. (Ins2) Online material development and

adaptation

6 And they also don't know how to prepare an online material. There are some theories, perspectives,

frameworks about how to develop an online material, for instance. (Ins7) Teaching four skills online 3 Also, the skills, we need to have

separate courses for teaching each skill in online platforms and different

courses for each skill and materials.

(Ins6)

Online assessment 2 How to assess students online, how to

administer the exams, or how to prepare the projects, like instead of exams, etc. Everything is a bit different when it comes to online teaching. (Ins9)

Psychology for online lessons 2 Some kind psychological things about online education can be included in the curriculum. We know educational technology and psychology, we took those courses, but I don't think that it applies for online teaching at all. In online, like, everything's totally different. (Ins2)

Problem solving for online lessons 2 Difficulties during online teaching, so it can be kind of error analysis for the teachers. Okay, these are the problems that you will face, so, be prepared for these ones. (Ins2)

How to teach students to be an online citizen

1 We also need to teach them how to be good online citizens. Because you have to be a good online citizen. That means that you have to know how to use your citizenships online, like you need a formal email address, you need a mobile phone with a lot of

applications, you have to know how to use them as a teacher. (Ins8)

Online environment 1 Well, first of all the types of online environment. There are multiple types of online environment and online teaching and there are lots of rules about how to teach online, so they don't know any of them. (Ins8)

Variety in online education 1 Again, how to make more variety, you know, types of activities and

interactions. (Ins5)

Time management in online lessons 1 Time management. If you have, like very long text reading texts, for example, it might be a bit difficult to cover in virtual classrooms. If you want them to read it silently, it will take like a lot of time, and you can never see your students and know if they read it or not. (Ins9)

Rationale behind educational technologies

1 Why do we actually need educational technology? For the sake of fun or for the sake of something else? Do we really know that? For instance, why do we need technology in English? What makes it good about education?

Maybe that could be done more clear.

(Ins8)

Using the same technique, which is NGT, these items were discussed and ordered by 3 focus group interview participants as can be seen clearly in Table 21.

Table 21

Focus group instructors’ rating on pre-service online teaching training contents

Codes P1 P2 P3

Usage of some technology and tools 3 2 5

Student participation 4 8 8

Student motivation 8 9 7

Online material development and adaptation 2 3 4

Teaching four skills online 1 10 10

Online assessment 5 11 11

Psychology for online lessons 13 5 9

Problem solving for online lessons 6 7 12

How to teach students to be an online citizen 12 4 1

Online environment 10 1 3

Variety in online education 7 12 6

Time management in online lessons 11 13 13

Rationale behind educational technologies 9 6 2

While rating these items, the focus group instructors stated that they thought in a similar way for the items that was available in in-service training, as well, such as usage of technology and tools. For student participation and motivation items in pre-service training, instructors mostly gave less priority than in-service training. P2 explained the reason: “Maybe I put it a bit behind because I thought that they can have the chance to get in-service training about these things. So I think that like not everything can be taught during the four-year program. I thought that these could be integrated into in-service trainings and I gave the priority in in-service for them.” For student participation, only P1 gave more priority than other instructors: “I think learning how to engage students is also important and it's kind of related to the use of

technology. The purpose of using the technological tools is to engage the students more.” For online material development and adaptation, all participants gave high scores. P3 said: “For

online material, we have different approaches, we have different ways of communicating, we have to develop different kinds of material in order to have different kinds of teaching.” When it comes to teaching four skills online, while P2 and P3 assigned number 10, P1 indicated the highest priority and pointed out: “For the previous session, we were talking about in-service, I thought that they have already learned how to teach four skills. That's why it doesn't mean a lot to them, but for students, I think it is very important to teach them properly whether online or face-to-face.” Although P2 assigned number 10, s/he highlighted this: “Actually, I want to give it a higher priority, but I couldn't, so it made me sad, that's actually an important topic, actually, but I couldn't give a high priority.” About online assessment, the instructors assigned the

numbers 5, 11 and 11 respectively. P1 explained the importance of pre-service online assessment training: “I think assessment itself is a difficult topic and when it comes to doing it online, it becomes even more complicated. It is important whether to assign projects or exams, or if you're assigning exams, which platform do you like to use, for example, there are some platforms that are not free, which locks the computer screen so that the students cannot open tabs or etc. So, I think this is an important issue, and at first when first pandemic hits, and there was a

controversial situation. Everybody has different ideas about it. So, I think it is something important.” On the other hand, P3 said: “I believe that online assessment is important. I didn't put a high priority to it because it's something that is being developed. It is not something that we know, right now, in detail, right? I believe there are other reasons that should be prioritized right now, such as creating awareness.” About the psychology item, the ordering of the

instructors are highly diversified. P1 gave the lowest priority and stated: “It's about the feelings.

It is nice, but it's a job of a counselor or a psychologist, of course as a teacher you should understand the feelings of students as well, but I think participation and motivation are more important.” P2 assigned number 5 for this item and claimed: “I thought that psychology should play a bigger role in education, and also in language teaching. So, I try to give a high priority, which is a different area, which is a different world online.” For the problem solving in online lessons item, P3 assigned number 11 and argued: “I didn't give high priority because I believe if we solve the other problems first, problem solving will become something automatic.” P1 who indicated the highest priority for this item among all the participants with number 6 stated: “P3 is right, once you get experienced in the other fields, it will become automatically, but there are always some problems that are unexpected and that you never met before. So I think it's

something important to be taught.” About teaching students how to be an online citizen, P3 gave the top priority: “I believe it is the most important one because students don't see the meaning of being an online citizen. Time has changed, we are changing, we are going from face-to-face education to online education. To be an online citizen is to realize that everything is changing and if they don't realize that everything is changing, they are not going to have motivation because they don't see the reasons why. I believe that even if we get out of this pandemic, online education will still be important. So, that's why it's important to know the meaning of being an online citizen.” Contrarily, P1 gave one the lowest priorities for this item and stated: “I also think that learning to be an online citizen is important, but it is not the responsibility of a language teacher.” For the online environment item, P2 gave the top score, P3 also gave a high priority with number 3, and P1 gave a lower priority with number 10. P2 explained the

importance of this item: “First, they should know, understand what online education is. What is online environment? Then, they can learn how to do it, like learning a language first and learning how to teach it later.” However, P1 explicated her/his reasons for not giving a higher priority: “I think these terms are very general. Once you introduce the technological tools and everything to students, they will get to know the online environment as well. When you teach them how to teach four skills, when you teach them how to prepare materials appropriately, they will get the concept of online teaching in general as well.” For the variety in online education item, P1 and P3 assigned similar numbers, which are in the middle, however, P2 gave one of the lowest priorities: “Well, I thought after these other things are done, they can learn this

automatically.” About the time management in online lessons, it is intriguing that all of the participants gave low priorities which was also the same for in-service contents. P1 asserted that:

“When they know how to manage their time in a real classroom, they will probably learn to adapt that skill to the online environment.” Finally, about the rationale behind educational technologies, P3 gave the second highest priority: “I just tried to go from general to specific. So, for me, the most important thing was how to be an online citizen. And then, the next most

important thing was the rationale behind educational technologies. I believe it's important to implement critical thinking in our students.”

Apart from these items, the focus group participants were asked if they would like to add more contents related to online education for the curriculum of pre-service English language teachers and for the trainings of in-service instructors. The instructors suggested that some other

items in both in-service and pre-service training could be employable for both audiences as can be seen in the excerpts below.

“For me, how to create awareness might be implemented in the curriculum of the ELT students as well.” (P1)

“The concepts like online employment and teaching concept in general and how to teach students to be an online citizen should be included in in-service training, too. I would say almost everything in pre-teaching part should be integrated in in-service, too.” (P2)

”How to be an online citizen is something that should be considered in in-service. Some of as teachers, we, don't know the importance of being an online citizen yet. We may need psychology item, too.” (P3)

4.2.9. Focus Group Instructors’ Perspectives on Students’ Reasons for not Turning Their Cameras on: During the focus group interview, the reasons behind students’ not turning on their cameras, obtained from student data, which were not doing it because nobody turns it on, privacy concerns, caring about the appearance too much, being too relaxed, shyness, not having high-quality devices and seeing the camera usage as a distractor, were presented to the instructors. All three instructors stated their ideas about these reasons and camera usage. One of the instructor thought that the reasons seemed valid and as long as the students followed the lesson, there would not be any problem. The other instructor thought that only 3 of these could be acceptable, but it would be better they could turn their cameras on. The third instructor is the most flexible one about this issue and stated that camera usage was not important for her/him, but the microphone usage was obligatory and s/he was strict about it.

“I think all of these reasons are somehow valid. But the most important reason is that they want to do something else other than focusing on the class, they want to eat while they're listening, they want to lay down, they want to go to the toilet or to the kitchen, come back, etc.

They just don't want to turn on a camera, but if they don't turn on my cameras but speak, that's okay for me, as well, but they just need to show me that they're following me. By the way, about the privacy issue, some students don't want to turn on the cameras because they don't want to

share their rooms with us, but they can use the artificial background and so we can just see their faces. I always use it in my classes.” (P1)

“I really found it really interesting about having low quality devices. Yes, that is a real reason. I can accept only those three, feeling privacy, okay, but I have still some counter arguments about it. Being shy, okay, and having low quality devices, okay. … If you cannot see someone, how can you benefit from that conversation or that communication? I don't trust them when I don't see their faces, when I don't hear them, when I don't get any interaction from them”

(P2)

“I set the rules from the beginning. Cameras are not important for me, but microphones are everything in my lesson. In my lesson they never turn on the cameras but microphones are mandatory and it works well.” (P3)

CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the results of the study will be discussed elaborately and no tables with detailed numerical data will be included as they have already been given in the findings chapter.