Online language teacher training – Challenges and new perspectives

Abstract

As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, the education sector faced a major challenge, struggling to provide continuity by shifting to online teaching and learning. This study presents the process of the shift to online teaching and practice in language teacher training, working with a group of translation and interpretation students enrolled in a teacher training programme as well. With the help of an interview, we asked our students to reflect on their personal experience related to the following issues: advantages and disadvantages of online and offline language teaching; eventual changes in student autonomy; changes in the role of the teacher; future perspectives of language teaching following the shift to online education; and the difficulties they encountered in this period. We intend to use the results in designing an up-to-date curriculum for language teacher training, considering possible paradigm shifts in language teaching in the near future. Keywords: Online, language teaching; blended learning; adaptive learning; teacher training.