Sustaining the Provision of Quality ESL Instruction during the Pandemic via G Suite Education Applications

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Chan Shao-Wen, Gurnam Kaur Sidhu, Lim Hwee Jean

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has made remote teaching and learning the current norm. However, the sudden and rapid transition to remote teaching and learning around the world brought about ambivalent teaching instructions with the use of various online teaching tools. The quality of an instruction in all disciplines including English as a Second Language (ESL) when supplemented with an online teaching tool is uncertain due to each online teaching tool operating in different forms providing different functions with its share of pros and cons. The application that recently made headlines in the teaching and learning world is Google Classroom from G Suite for Education applications. In fact, Google Classroom has been embraced as the main online teaching and learning platform by most public schools in Malaysia. Consequently, tertiary institutions have included G Suite for Education applications as a viable teaching tool for pre-service teacher training programmes. This paper will discuss to what extent G Suite for Education applications can help sustain the quality of ESL instruction. This qualitative case study was conducted in a private university in Malaysia. It explored the perspectives of four ESL lecturers who have employed G-Suite Education applications over the past few years based on constructs under TAM (Technology Acceptance Model). The data were collected via face-to-face interviews and analysed using thematic approach. The main findings from this study were lecturers perceived G Suite for Education applications easy to use, useful and effective while the challenges they faced were lack of awareness and training.

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