An Evaluation of Teacher-Student Interaction During Online Lessons

Abstract

The current evaluation study aims to describe the interaction between teachers and their students during online EFL lessons at tertiary level and examine the relationship between such interaction and student engagement. To this end, 5 EFL teacher-student pairs were chosen through purposeful sampling as well as snowballing method, and by employing a qualitative approach, they were interviewed twice. First interview was aimed to obtain the accounts of the participating teachers and students’ experiences, and the second interview was aimed to corroborate the findings with the participants. The results suggest that (i) the interaction between the teachers and students during online lessons were limited due mostly to technological challenges and lack of knowledge regarding the instructional use of technology, and (ii) the participants perceived this low-level interaction as one of the possible factors affecting student engagement negatively.

Keywords

• teacher-student interaction
• online instruction
• student engagement

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