Teaching English Online During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia: Challenges and Pedagogical Opportunities

Abstract

With the spread of COVID-19 all over the world, the transformation of the educational system and the implementation of remote lessons became the only possible variant to continue the process of teaching students for English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers. This tendency was unexpected and became rather difficult for teachers and administrators who were typically not involved in online education to facilitate that change smoothly. The purpose of the study is to investigate the pedagogical opportunities and challenges for teachers who have to work online during the pandemic organizing the lessons of foreign languages in Saudi Arabia. The study is based on the analysis of the information received during qualitative semi-structured interviews with teachers from Saudi Arabian Universities and English language centers who use online classes as an alternative to traditional English lessons. The results of the study show that from the teacher’s perspective, challenges included a lack of student engagement, unnatural communication patterns, unusual requirements for planning content, and technical difficulties. The study found that remote education is hampered by low student engagement, lack of appropriate technology, incompatibility with new technologies, emotional stress, communication issues, student perception of material, attention on work, and inability to communicate with teachers and classmates. Moreover, the major findings include the solutions to the existing issues of online education, such as the creation of compelling content, the use of powerful online tools, the provision of effective platforms to students, the deeper focus on listening skills, and the use of technologies.

Plain Language Summary

Challenges and opportunities of teaching English online in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 pandemic

The purpose of this study is to investigate the pedagogical opportunities and challenges faced by English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they transitioned to online teaching. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers from Saudi Arabian Universities and English language centers who utilized online classes as an alternative to traditional English lessons. The study revealed that teachers encountered various challenges, including low student engagement, difficulties in communication, unconventional content planning requirements, and technical issues. Moreover, the research identified factors hindering remote education, such as student disengagement, inadequate technology, emotional stress, communication problems, student perception of material, attention span, and limited interaction with teachers and peers. The findings also highlighted potential solutions, including the development of captivating content, utilization of effective online tools, provision of robust platforms, emphasis on listening skills, and leveraging appropriate technologies.

Introduction

The coronavirus has affected all teachers and all educational environments worldwide, with English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers being no exception. The impact of pandemic in the educational system, EFL teachers had to prepare themselves for the new work conditions and choose other approaches to professional communication with their students worldwide. On the local level, EFL teachers also had to study additional competencies and develop new skills to save the highest level of effectiveness while accomplishing professional tasks. Like in most parts of the world, English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Saudi Arabia were forced to perform a transition to online English teaching more or less overnight. As Algethami (2022) mentions, the use of online perspectives is an essential step in the digitalization of the educational system in Saudi Arabia. As recent research showed, this transition resulted in specific challenges, such as the need to understand online teaching platforms, use online language teaching methods, and organize online class management that undermined the overall quality of teaching and student outcomes (Du et al., 2022; Gao & Zhang, 2020; Wut & Xu, 2021). The research has also revealed that the transition to online teaching and learning implied specific opportunities for student engagement and improved performance, such as satisfaction with interactions, flexible schedules, and online platforms for scholarly communication and discussions (Afzaal, 2022; Almahasees et al., 2021; Jaradat & Ajlouni, 2021; Liu & Afzaal, 2022). Moreover, as Moorhouse and Kohnke (2021) mention, many teachers experience troubles with adaptation to online learning but a better understanding of the competence needed to teach languages effectively online can solve this issue. According to Marazziti et al. (2014), language teachers have to pay attention to stress, wellbeing and negative emotions that directly correlate with their work strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. These noticeable tendencies caused the need to update the process of teaching students and resulted in the selection of the appropriate purpose and three objectives. As Al-Samiri (2021) argues that the transition to online instruction and teaching processes increased the development of new skills in both language students and their instructors in Saudi Arabia. According to Khawaji (2022), the place of English in the Saudi-Arabian cultural context changed seriously during the years of the pandemic, and its importance is constantly growing to maintain pace with the Saudi vision 2030. So, the significance of online learning of English will become only higher in the nearest time. The study of EFL teaching looked like a unique opportunity to make this process more comfortable for both teachers and their students.

This conducted qualitative research aimed to explore the challenges and pedagogical opportunities involved in transitioning from traditional classroom teaching to online English teaching in Saudi Arabia from the point of their effectiveness in this country. More specifically, the research had three objectives, including the identification of challenges of Saudi English teachers, experienced as a result of the transition from traditional learning to online learning; the determination of solutions to the existing challenges proposed by Saudi English language teachers; the definition of benefits of online learning given by Saudi English language teachers. The scope of the study refers to the explanation of the role of online education in the current academic environment in Saudi Arabia. The data for the study was gathered during the severest part of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The further analysis was conducted during the years 2021 to 2023 and included evidence of important changes during the pandemic period. The geographical location of the study is Saudi Arabia, so all the analysis was done in relation to tendencies and people in this country, even though the same information can be relevant and applicable to situations abroad too.

This study made a valuable contribution because it extends the existing body of knowledge about the forced transition to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The value of the study is based on the ability to improve the performance of English teachers in Saudi Arabia who have to use online learning as the key method of communication with their students. The growth of performance indicators can lead to the simplification of the studying process, which is important for current students and future generations. Moreover, the research focused on Saudi Arabian context, so its findings were particularly relevant to the English language teachers in this country. In addition, the study examined the challenges and opportunities of teaching English online, so its findings became useful to all EFL teachers. The key findings of the research were expected to have important implications for the English educational system in Saudi Arabia. They can be used as the basis for the transformation of teaching principles of Saudi Arabian EFL teachers and the update of the English program, taking into consideration the challenges and opportunities of the online environment.

Literature Review

Literature on EFL instructors who were forced to transition to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic is beginning to emerge notably. However, teachers’ experiences in making that transition are still an underexplored area and the literature on Saudi English teachers who teach online continues to be scarce. Previous studies have revealed challenges for teachers and pedagogical opportunities associated with the forced transition to teaching online. However, the gap in the existing literature related to this topic included the absence of systematized knowledge related to the relevant challenges and the lack of appropriate recommendations for their solution. In this context, the analysis of the existing literature serves as the background for the perception of the theme. However, it cannot be interpreted as a well-organized study due to the lack of grounded presentations of concepts and the preliminary analysis of Saudi Arabian educational specifications.

Challenges

Previously, many studies have identified challenges concentrated on the idea that the transition to online EFL teaching and learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic was a forced one. For instance, Adedoyin and Soykan (2020) showed that education systems could have been changed based on the natural implementation of technologies and forced actions that were chosen as responses to crises. This situation was a challenging for teachers because such responses were uncontrollable and unpredictable. This scenario was less favorable because, under it, the transition was not well-planned and more chaotic. As the research showed, to effectively implement technologies, teachers needed sufficient time to plan the implementation and upgrade the skills required for effectively use these technologies (Al-Awidi & Aldhafeeri, 2017).

In addition, a few of the studies also highlighted that online teaching provided fewer opportunities for social interaction (e.g., the use of body language was limited in online learning) and engagement (e.g., in a physical classroom, a teacher effectively used space to engage learners) (Butts et al., 2013; Martin & Bolliger, 2018). Without face-to-face interactions, an essential “cognitive social presence and affective social presence” could not be fully established (Wut & Xu, 2021, p. 371). According to Wut and Xu (2021), “extra well-planned efforts” are required to increase social presence in an online environment (p. 6).

Another challenge discussed in the literature was the technology itself. More specifically, the availability of technologies and EFL teachers’ ability to use them. According to Aljaber (2018), the availability issue was not relevant to Saudi Arabia, where the government extensively supported schools. However, in many countries with low levels of economic development, students and teachers may lack access to technological equipment essential for organizing online classes. This challenge was relevant there because people had to buy devices by themselves and also pay for the use of online platforms. The least developed countries differed from the most developed countries in levels of Internet access and could not provide students with the stable benefits of web knowledge and demonstrated low “learner-to-computer connected” ratios (Passey et al., 2016, p. 123). The improvement of national economies became the factor that positively affected the availability of technologies in educational institutions.

However, the need for more competence in using online technologies by Saudi Arabian teachers might be an issue. As Gao and Zhang’s (2020) research has shown, this competence involves both knowledges about online content, technological content knowledge (TCK), and knowledge of how to effectively teach this online content, so-called technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK). The shortage of TCK and TPK can substantially undermine the quality of teaching English online. Moreover, Gillett-Swan (2017) explained that many teachers needed higher levels of technical competency and digital proficiency in addition to the regular academic workload when they organized lessons online. According to Albeshir (2022), in Saudi Arabia, the current situation in the field of culture, family issues and economic challenges, the lack of healthcare opportunities, psychological problems, social difficulties, and language barriers for people indirectly affect the teaching process because they distract the attention of students and teachers from the academic process. As a result, the published materials showed the multifaceted connection between the general problems of students and their academic performance during online education. In addition, as Almazroa (2020) mentioned, teachers in Saudi Arabia generally experienced troubles with the teaching workload, classroom management, the lack of a unified perception of students’ difficulties, and the lack of validated studies that can show problems specifically in different regions of the country.

To summarize, the three core challenges that EFL instructors in Saudi Arabia have faced while teaching English online include the forced format of education, the lack of social presence, and the lack of technological knowledge (both content knowledge and pedagogical one). In this case, the lack of this knowledge about EFL teachers in Saudi Arabia and the absence of connections to online education format created a severe gap in the current academic achievements.

Emergency Online Education and Learning

The nature of remote education directly depends on the selection of teaching strategies and approaches to the preparation of materials for learning, their adjustment to the new format of communication with students. In this context, the presence of emergency online education or learning leads to the ability to use the same courses developed for in-person lessons in the classroom and their transition to the online environment without major adjustments in Saudi Arabia or other countries. According to He and Xiao (2020), emergency remote teaching is a result of the need to make a transition of all classes to online and change the format of all educational programs. From this point of view, the implementation of emergency online education in the Saudi-Arabian context is a transitional point between the challenges and opportunities of online teaching because for some specialists the ability to avoid reorganizations of programs and content is an opportunity to reduce the complexity of work and preparations. However, for other teachers, emergency online education is only a challenge due to the difficulty of using the same offline materials in the online environment without any adjustments and corrections. As Aranyi et al. (2022) mention, emergency remote teaching is a temporary and improvised shift to the alternative delivery mode due to crisis circumstances in education or global living conditions. As a result, the temporality of this aspect is doubtful due to the long duration of the pandemic and the relevance of threats of COVID-19 even in 2023. These ideas show that in Saudi Arabia as in other places, the implementation of emergency online education was presented during the start of the pandemic and then logically turned into the need to adjust the programs to online learning opportunities.

Pedagogical Opportunities

The determination to pedagogical opportunities for teaching English has always been essential for the success of the educational system in Saudi Arabia. The potential consequences of the implementation of the online format meant numerous changes in the requirements for Saudi Arabian EFL teachers who received additional opportunities. The above-mentioned studies showed the positive side of online perspectives of academic processes. One central opportunity associated with the transition to online English teaching was based on its positive perception by students because they were generally supportive of digitalization. As Jaradat and Ajlouni (2021) explained, those positive attitudes can be attributed to the fact that students are generally skilled in using technology. Therefore, this activity was understandable for them and did not require much additional knowledge in their daily lives. Homeschooling offered more flexibility than classroom learning. Students worked on assignments independently, which improved learning (Almahasees et al., 2021). This study supports the assumption that students felt more accessible and more convenient when they could easily change their schedules and designate many priorities in their way. According to Vega-Carrero et al. (2017), online English education benefits society by creating more bilingual persons who can work as motivated instructors and have more self-realization options. Another opportunity related to teaching English online was that online learning offered rich opportunities for self-development and independent practice (Almahasees et al., 2021; Kumi-Yeboah et al., 2020). Different online teaching platforms and applications such as Learning Management Systems (LMS) also enabled teachers to differentiate instruction to meet each student’s unique needs more effectively (Kumi-Yeboah et al., 2020). From this standpoint, the shift toward teaching English online potentially reduced disparity and equality because all students had access to online learning technologies. In this context, online technologies did not look unusual and proposed numerous benefits. For example, according to Xu (2014), online learning was becoming a standard norm because it adopted useful management systems, forums, and online interactions between students. As Al-Maqtri (2014) explained, flexibility, accessibility, affordable prices, and convenience were the key benefits of online learning (Al-Maqtri, 2014, p. 649).

As Fitria (2020) mentioned, technologies looked essential for the online format of teaching English because they created an innovative context for sharing instructions and enhancing face-to-face contacts with faster communication standards. Moreover, as Farooq et al. (2012) added, English programs that were taught online indicated an improvement of learning processes and the overall performance due to the digital format.

Another pedagogical opportunity, as mentioned by Jaradat and Ajlouni (2021), was the fact that students felt safer at home because they were not exposed to the dangers of the coronavirus there. When people felt relaxed and did not think about the dangers of the outside world behind the doors of their apartments, they perceived the educational information deeper and remembered it better. As Jaradat and Ajlouni (2021) added, this factor was of great importance because the feeling of safety was generally correlated with students’ positive learning outcomes. As a result, at this point, students had the ability to perceive the knowledge effectively only if they were not anxious and did not think about the risks and problems that looked more important to their lives than the knowledge of English. When students were at home, they received an opportunity to stay focused on the material and avoid being nervous.

However, the published research materials analysis showed gaps in the context of pedagogical opportunities for online learning in Saudi Arabia. These gaps depend on the specifications of teaching English in this country. For example, teachers of English in Saudi Arabia have limited materials that can match the format of online education, and many textbooks and publications are not applicable to online materials at all because they are printed. In this context, the process of teaching becomes too difficult because educators have to copy each page of the textbook and send all of them to students. Moreover, the gap in existing research materials on the topic refers to the absence of preparedness for the analysis of tendencies in this sphere in the chosen country and the inability of educators to use this published experience for further drastic improvements of their teaching strategies. From this point of view, the same issues should be explored in a different context in Saudi Arabia as an attempt to make sure that the possibilities of online learning will benefit EFL teachers and their educational competencies.

The above literature review showed that the opportunities associated with online learning, on which English teachers could potentially focus, included student motivation. Opportunities for self-learning and effective differentiation of the instruction (which was implicitly related to reduced disparity). At the same time, the information about the opportunities needed to include the propositions for using them in practical situations. A study examining the challenges and pedagogical opportunities of online education is urgently needed. Such research can assist individuals in Saudi Arabia to evaluate and enhance the current education system, utilizing the most effective methods of communication with students. Therefore, this study can offer insights Saudi Arabian EFL teachers about the most effective ways to transition to online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, the study address the following research questions:

Research Questions

• Q1: What challenges have English language teachers in Saudi Arabia encountered due to implementing online learning in the educational process?

• Q2: What solutions have English language teachers in Saudi Arabia undertaken to address the existing challenges?

• Q3: What pedagogical opportunities related to online learning do English language teachers in Saudi Arabia identify as promising or valuable?

Research Methodology

The study initially reviewed the literature review and provided insights into the challenges and opportunities of the black swan era worldwide. Further, the study conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 English teachers. This study has a phenomenological research design that is based on human experiences and the visions of potential practical answers to the research questions given by experts in the analyzed area. The phenomenological research design for this study is chosen in order to reveal the working solutions to challenges of online learning education and increase the advantages of pedagogical opportunities of this teaching format on the basis of emotionally neutral conclusions and first-person narratives from the lives of actual teachers. As discussed by Creswell (2014), interviews provide researchers with an in-depth understanding of participants’ lived experiences and, subsequently, assist with identifying critical themes related to the focus of a particular study. Finally, the study was conducted in Saudi Arabia and included interviews with teachers who taught local Saudi students English as a foreign language. The research was conducted over a 1-year period in order to reflect the multifaceted opinions of all teachers and take into consideration their new experiences. The data was collected online due to the pandemic-related restrictions. Interviews were carried out online using Zoom and the length of each interview was about 40 to 50 min. The only language that was used for all interviews was English even though most teachers among the participants were non-native speakers. The conducted interviews were semi-structured in that the first author used a set of core questions (see Appendix A) and then asked several follow-up questions and clarification questions. With the help of Zoom, interviews were then transcribed.

The trustworthiness of this qualitative research is checked according the principles of credibility, dependability, confirmability and transferability. The method of triangulation is used to ensure that the credibility of the study is high. Based on the combination of methods for gathering the data, the process of triangulation is valuable for checking and approving the variety of results related to challenges, solutions to challenges, and pedagogical opportunities of online education in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the principle of dependability is followed in the research to show that the nature of the research is clear for its evaluation and analysis by other scholars. This aspect adds clarity to the final findings and analysis of the data. Moreover, the transferability of the study is also clear because the results are specifically prepared and generalized for further use in educational institutions in Saudi Arabia. The literature review section and the use of numerous relevant sources in the paper is suitable for the ability to prove the confirmability of the study because the received information in answers and scientific publications of other authors was checked and compared to the practical situation in Saudi Arabia and the local cultural context there. These aspects prove the trustworthiness of the conducted qualitative study and the credibility of conclusions.

Study Participants

The study involved non-probability sampling techniques, including convenience sampling, that helped to analyze experts’ opinions in the field of EFL education. EFL teacher interviewees were recruited from Saudi Arabian Universities and English language centers. Deans and directors of the universities and centers were contacted via phone and email, informed about the research purpose, and asked to connect the researcher to volunteering participants. The inclusion criteria for the interviewees were (1) being an EFL teacher and (2) having experience completing a forced transition to online English teaching due to the pandemic. Before the pandemic, teachers who had taught online (as their primary teaching mode) were not included in the study. The chosen participants included five men and five women. Four were native speakers of English, and the rest were non-native English speakers. Three of the interviewed teachers were PhD holders, and the rest had Master’s degrees in TESOL, applied linguistics, and other English areas related to teaching the English language. All the interviewed teachers were from 38 to 65 years old. Each of the participants had 15 or more years of experience.

In Table 1, the demographics of participants is presented.

Table 1.

The Demographics of Participants.

The country of origin	Number of participants	Degree
UK	1	PhD
US	3	Master’s
Saudi Arabia	6	4 PhD & 1 Master’s

Before participating in the study, research participants were asked to provide consent to use their answers for the research. In addition, participants were given the option to withdraw from the research at any time, and the participants were ensured anonymity in that pseudonyms were assigned.

Analysis Procedure

The analysis of the study comprises the transcriptions, which were further analyzed with the help of an analytical software called “Aquad.” It defined the key themes that stood out from the interviewees’ responses and the patterns of their interconnection with the current situation in Saudi Arabia. With the help of “Aquad,” the qualitative data analysis from semi-structured interviews became more convenient due to the ability to compare respondents’ answers in separate program windows. The use of this software helped to group the answers of respondents and prepare them better for the evaluation of qualitative data. This approach to analyzing information in the program made the analytical process more effective in the context of the organized qualitative study. The visual categorization of respondents’ answers also positively affected the analysis. Those aspects were used to find similar opinions of EFL teachers and demonstrate the valuable teaching aspects.

The information received during the interviews was systematized in “Aquad” and presented in the form of generalized ideas about the challenges of EFL teachers, pedagogical opportunities, and possible views on improving the processes of online education. During the analysis of transcripts, the comparison of answers and the search for similarities in the impressions of teachers were performed manually for each respondent. The program was used only for categorizing the received data and helped to identify the most valuable original content in teachers’ opinions.

Results and Discussions

The analysis of the semi-structured interview data revealed that Saudi English teachers experienced several challenges during of online teaching. The majority of teachers specified five challenges: low levels of student engagement, absence of necessary technologies, unfamiliarity with the required technologies, emotional stress, and problems with communication, the perception of the material by students, their focus on the work, and the ability to stay in touch with their teachers and classmates, having stable access to online instruments of learning and using digital literacy as an instrument of cognition.

The first group of challenges identified by teachers was the low level of student engagement during remote lessons. According to the data, the teachers could not control and monitor their students in the online environment, because they did not know what their students were doing behind their screens. As one of the respondents said, “Students feel bored when they study at home.” In this situation, teachers do not know whether each student understands their teaching. In addition, according to the respondents, students did not feel involved in the general discussion when they did not have stable eye contact with other speakers and participants of the dialogue on academic topics. From this point of view, teachers lose the ability to help students understand the information in the most transparent and fastest way. In class, a student can hear many stories in addition to the formal content but in the online environment, they just read and learn the basic knowledge that makes them feel bored. Students cannot exchange stories because they communicate only during formal discussions and do not have personal space where they are not listened or checked by the teacher. The logical result of this tendency related to the lack of informal contacts is the loss of engagement. Of course, if students have low levels of engagement during the classes, it will be harder for teachers to communicate with the audience. These aspects align with the idea of Almogbel (2015) who mentions that modern teachers in Saudi Arabia experience problems with students who show not enough engagement due to cultural differences and do not organize enough social control for individuals who require support.

Another challenge was the need for more access to technology. According to the participants, some students need web cameras, headphones, or laptops. The student’s lack of access to technological equipment causes limitations for studying online and leads to low levels of engagement during online classes. As one interviewed teacher mentioned, “Not all students are perfectly equipped with suitable devices, so the main problems are technical equipment, computers, laptops, and good connection to the Internet.” Students who do not have the required equipment may miss the whole concept of education and feel uncomfortable in the online classroom. When this happens, they are likely to lose control over their attention too. From this point of view, the data demonstrated the increased importance of electronic devices for the effectiveness of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The technological issues refer to the stability of the Internet connection. According to Al-Samiri (2021), internet connectivity and bandwidth affect students’ online experiences in a significant way. Problems with the connection interrupt the teaching process in the online classroom and affect students’ performance. The repeated disconnections will make teachers and students ineffective during the educational process. The participants’ digital literacy and skills became a third challenge that was identified in the interview data. Some teachers did not know how to manage online classes and prepare online resources. They needed months to improve their skills and organize the transition to the new teaching format based on the online platform. This shows that the process of transitioning to online teaching cannot happen immediately and needs time for the implementation of the new format of work. As one of the respondents mentioned, “The workload became higher during online lessons and teachers required more planning initiatives for the improvement of digital literacy skills during the accomplishment of tasks in the online classroom.” The analysis of this situation shows how teachers who are not used to the implementation of technologies in the educational process must spend more time preparing for lessons and studying the principles of digital literacy in addition to the actual material of each lesson.

Emotional stress was identified by the interviewees as a significant challenge of online education. Students were placed in a social environment where they felt lonely and stressed. At the same time, the use of the Internet for learning was only a replacement for actual contacts with other people. As a result, it was more difficult for teachers to identify students with emotional problems that distracted them from the perception of the material. According to one of the respondents, “The emotional change was one of the difficulties for students, and they were sad because they could not see their teacher in reality.” In this aspect, the emotional transformation of students’ behavior created a serious challenge that affected the level of concentration and the level of engagement of students in the online classroom.

The last and fifth challenge was interpersonal communication. Several teachers explained that “the lack of face-to-face communication is also a challenge for students, and it affects their performance.” The analysis of this problem shows that students are more likely to feel free of limits when communicating during face-to-face contact. Problems with interpersonal communication are an indirect consequence of stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the absence of actual meetings with other people. Another respondent proved the importance of this challenge by saying, “The virtual distance causes additional difficulties because, in the traditional classroom, students and teachers have more communication.” As a result, interpersonal communication becomes a significant factor that impacts the general effectiveness of teaching processes in Saudi classrooms. The study proved that teachers in Saudi Arabia paid attention to the difficulty of building trustworthy relations with students and the psychological aspects of the educational process.

Despite those challenges that looked like a combination of interpersonal, technological, social, and communicational factors, the findings also revealed that searching for realistic solutions was also possible.

Solutions to Challenges of Online Teaching

The data analysis reveals solutions that help teachers to overcome numerous challenges and difficulties. The main solutions to the existing challenges of online education for EFL teachers included the creation of intriguing content, the use of powerful online tools, the proposition of relevant and effective platforms to students during the teaching process, the deeper focus on effective listening skills, and the provision of students with technologies and access to the Internet by state institutions.

First, one of the solutions that can help teachers is the proposition to make the online classes and the content more interesting and intriguing. As one of the interviewed teachers explained, teachers can use content to build emotional empathy and improve the activity of students in the process of researching the information. According to the respondents, an effective approach is to divide students into small groups and promote engagement through relevant communication patterns, making the students more productive during the study of the content. Teachers will still need to focus on weak students when they will explain the intriguing content, but the growth of engagement will help them to have the attention of all students in the classroom. Teachers will ask questions, listen to the students’ answers, and explain the content clearly so that students keep up with the other part of the class. As Grimes and Camirand (2015) mention, the use of movies and popular music can arouse the additional interest of students. Taking into consideration the materials from ten semi-structured interviews and the ideas of respondents about the effect of comfort on academic performance, the data prove that students reach higher results during the participation in online classes when they feel comfortable and are not distracted from the content by outer factors. The transition from traditional classes to online classes forces teachers to change a lot of content. Many teachers think that students at home can do more homework. They focus on the number of tasks but miss the quality of the homework. The improvement of the content for online English classes is one of the key solutions to the existing problems. If students use the best resources, they will be more focused on the discussion of such interesting materials during the online classes. In this context, the improvement of the academic content will be an effective way to control students’ behavior in the online classroom and increase their performance through original tasks and materials. The improvement of content will be a solution to numerous challenges of the new teaching format.

A second solution is the use of innovative online tools and platforms. For example, teachers can use PowerPoint presentations, videos, and flip cards. As one interviewed teacher mentioned, “The tool that can be potentially helpful is called the hypothesis and means that a teacher can see when students highlight something online after installing it as a browser extension.” Using innovative online tools by teachers is an appropriate method for raising interest in the online education format. One of the respondents also proposed a wiki webpage as a solution to the transformation of online teaching that can make the whole process more flexible. Using such online tools is preferable for solving problems with engagement in discussions between teachers and their students. As the data of the research shows, many teachers need the advantages of effective online platforms during their remote work with students who are learning English. As one of the respondents mentioned, “Google Documents, Zoom, and WhatsApp help to prepare students for the Cambridge Exam, and the use of annotation instruments is also effective.” The growth of students’ performance can be connected to the use of the specific online blackboard that helps to manage the class and reduce the time of studying technologies, have time for the content and online resources that can help students focus on the class. According to one of the teachers, Blackboard Ultra is an effective online teaching platform. It is easy to use and shares opportunities for the control of the whole class. Another platform is the university’s LM system, which can help teachers control and manage online classes. This solution depends on a budget of each university. It serves as a virtual platform that can help to learn English online. In addition to the LMS platform, Zoom and Google Documents are potent tools. They can be used during the organization of online classes for sharing documents or resources, making it an easy and fast process. According to Ramtek (2021), it is possible to make online English teaching more effective only if pedagogues are adequately informed about various web instruments. Teachers and students need to have specific exercises if they want to train and work on these platforms, better understand the workflow, and catch up with the transition. Increasing teachers’ attention to promoting listening skills can help achieve higher educational results during online lessons. Eight teachers say that students struggle with listening skills because they do not receive enough explanations and attention to improve this essential skill. As one of the respondents added, “The listening skill can be taught online and is rather manageable.” As a result, such students spend much time trying to find the appropriate way to understand the texts and conversations during the listening process. The respondents show they have no time to focus on other skills such as speaking, reading, and writing. In the classroom, teachers can estimate students’ results and give them more recommendations on listening to others more effectively. In this context, the solution to problems with listening is the organization of additional listening exercises where students hear the texts and have to analyze them later. Teachers can propose different questions related to the texts to improve their students’ listening skills. This approach can help students if they want to understand everything clearly. However, during the online format, teachers do not know how each student understands the content. To overcome this issue, teachers propose more discussions on the blackboard. They start by identifying benefits and funny moments that can attract students and cause additional interest in books, texts, or discussions. According to Codreanu (2020), problems with listening perception are caused by the fact that students do not have the right equipment or do not pay enough attention to training processes. As a result, such propositions will help students brainstorm and increase their level of listening in different learning environments.

Another solution to the challenges of online education is the organization of stable and equal access to the Internet for all students. The internet connection should be provided by the state institutions and the government because it requires a lot of investments for the improvement of the IT infrastructure. As one of the teachers explains, “The equal access to internet services adds more freedom to students’ behaviors and improves concentration.” In this context, the provision of students with access to this freedom is one of the most significant tasks for educational institutions. Universities cannot afford these budgets. As a result, the government should provide its students with web services and pay for the rent of personal computers or other devices for the best students who deserve this attitude. As Saqlain et al. (2013) add, teachers in Saudi Arabia should also receive the proper level of training in their technology skills to use them efficiently for teaching languages. As a result, teachers will act more competitively, and students will feel more motivated. Moreover, the availability of essential laptops for students and the presence of Internet access will help students be more engaged in the learning process and communicate with their teachers and classmates. The results showed that the existing challenges in the context of online teaching processes portray the multifaceted nature of possible academic improvements. The study highlights the use of online tools and effective online platforms, the deeper focus on training practical listening skills, and the provision of students with equal access to technologies and the Internet (Qiuhan et al., 2020).

Pedagogical Opportunities

The analysis of teachers’ answers during interviews showed that transitioning from teaching English in class to the online format required a multifaceted change of studying and teaching initiatives. However, this change can help reduce the number of other issues, save time for additional work, and improve skills such as planning, explanation, leadership, and communication. From this point of view, the generalization of interviews was used to identify the main pedagogical opportunities of online education for EFL teachers in Saudi Arabia, including the ability to stay at home, make the process of education more affordable, and motivate more students through the creation of interactive technological teaching patterns.

Teachers think that they can stay at home and have students all over the world. As one of the respondents explained, “The advantage of online learning is the convenience of lessons.” From this point of view, teachers can sit at home and minimize the time needed for preparations for each lesson, making the whole teaching process more convenient for all participants of online classes. This pedagogical opportunity looks like an obvious advantage because it describes the potential benefit of EFL teachers in Saudi Arabia. As a result, teachers use their precious time more effectively and work with students from different cities or countries. This approach to teaching leads to higher academic results for students and creates additional advantages for educators. As Xhaferi and Xhaferi (2020) mention, teachers should use additional benefits to prepare students for work in a new learning environment through discussion, cooperation, and motivation. Furthermore, teachers who do not visit educational institutions have more freedom to organize their work duties and communicate with students.

From the students’ side, they save money, which is one of the key reasons that makes them more focused on the online education format. As one of the teachers mentioned, “Using online lessons allowed students to limit the financial expenses of the educational process.” Therefore, the online format should be used as much as possible to save time and money during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, students receive an opportunity from their pedagogues and feel that their education becomes more accessible from a short-term perspective. At the same time, teachers use their opportunities to focus on students and make them more motivated by explaining the advantages of online education and mentioning the financial side of this educational activity.

The respondents showed that motivation seems to be necessary for practical online lessons. In this context, online education can be interpreted as a pedagogical opportunity because it helps to motivate more students through the creation of interactive technological teaching patterns and make it simultaneously. According to four participants, students require more motivation that can be delivered to them based on new online instruments. In this context, students become more motivated because they enjoy the whole process of learning. They can overcome the lack of engagement and organize a stable attitude to all the academic tasks if the program includes numerous creative assignments and an interactive presentation of the material. As Mese and Sevilen (2021) mention, students who study online experience lower motivation levels when they skip classes or avoid participating in group activities. In this context, this statement proves the significance of motivation for effectively improving English skills among Saudi students. At the same time, Elshareif and Mohamed (2021) add that students’ motivation to learn and receive new knowledge contributes to their success in the future. As a result, during online education, teachers should focus on improving students’ motivation, depending on the individual characteristics of each person in the classroom. In summary, the analysis of the proposed pedagogical opportunities demonstrates the effectiveness of online education for the study of English as a foreign language. Pedagogues can use different web technologies to communicate with their students and increase their linguistic skills. Moreover, during online education, teachers can evaluate their students easily and concentrate on the stability of their knowledge. In Saudi Arabia, the online format of education during the study of English looks efficient because students can have access to the Internet and organize their personal time schedules needed for the control of the learning process and the organization of convenient conditions for completing assignments online. The establishment of innovative online lessons can help teachers save their efforts and, at the same time, realize the benefits of all web instruments for improving reading, listening, and writing skills. The key objective is the quality of teaching and studying, so the new format of remote education should be researched and applied continuously if educators want to find the best way to teach English and other courses online. From this point of view, all the pedagogic opportunities of the online format deal with the need to organize an effective communication process. At the same time, pedagogues will receive a wide range of innovative teaching instruments and the ability to ask questions to many students, receive simultaneous answers, or use technologies to check the knowledge of people who learn English as a foreign language.

Discussions

The novel findings of this study include the determination of challenges, the identification of solutions to potential problems, and the presentation of pedagogical opportunities of online education in the context of teaching English by EFL teachers in Saudi Arabia. The novelty of these findings is based on the lack of previous knowledge about the reactions of teachers and students to the forced transition from traditional face-to-face lessons to online classes. The absence of current materials on this topic in Saudi Arabia helped to define groundbreaking aspects of online education, understand its positive and negative characteristics, and use the data for the explanation of propositions that will be able to eliminate the disadvantages in the future. The study reveals the key challenges of online education for EFL teachers and their students, solutions to these challenges, and pedagogical opportunities that can be used for making decisions in the professional environment of the modern educational system.

The findings of the research showed several challenges the 10 English teachers faced when teaching online, as well as several solutions and pedagogical benefits. The main challenges of the online format of education presented in the study are low levels of student engagement, absence of necessary technologies, unfamiliarity with the required technologies, emotional stress, and problems in communication. The key challenges of the online environment in teaching English are a combination of interpersonal, technological, social, and communicational factors caused by the lack of standard attitudes and practical experiences of teachers and students. Moreover, such challenges result from the inability to provide all students with laptops and convenient online platforms for communication and academic cooperation. If students communicate with each other, they discuss only the major information on the topic. They cannot achieve normal developmental characteristics due to the absence of normal conditions for the natural social background. As a result, these aspects cause numerous challenges that combine and lead to the growth of underachievement and the minimization of study effectiveness. This key finding is significant because it helps to identify the existing problems in the academic field and prepare teachers in Saudi Arabia for their solutions based on creative strategies and additional tasks, including the search for new online platforms, the use of new content and visual materials, the implementation of innovative instruments for control and communication. The definition of the frequency distribution can be used to show the correlation between the preferences of education types by various participants from the statistic pool of respondents (Table 2).

Table 2.

The Frequency Distribution of Choices Between Online Learning and Face-to-Face Learning in the Classroom.

Preference of the education type	Frequency during the qualitative research
Online learning	6
Face-to-face learning in the classroom	4

As a result, the relative frequency of online learning in this qualitative study is 6/10, and it equals about 0.6. The relative frequency of face-to-face learning in the classroom is 4/10, equals 0.4. Most respondents preferred online learning because it included more pedagogical opportunities in the pandemic era.

In this context, the implications of this research study are the ability to engage students in more academic activities, build trustworthy communication patterns with students, organize their work more effectively, make updates to the content of textbooks, choose relevant software and online platforms for lessons. Moreover, the implications of the study refer to the ability of Saudi teachers to adjust their professional behaviors to the current online standards and select effective methods of communication. In addition, the study helps to control the conditions of work, including the explanation of the need for laptops and mobile devices with access to the Internet. The previous research materials did not include the properly determined problems of online education in Saudi Arabia but what is even more important, the actual research of the work of EFL teachers during the pandemic has never been deeply analyzed by the world academic community. As a result, the study proposes the most efficient methods for teaching students online, taking into consideration the characteristics of modern society in Saudi Arabia, the opinions of the local people, and the reactions of students to the forced changes in their academic habits.

From the study, the readers learn that the solution to such challenges should be achieved by competent teachers who use their efforts to support students and adjust the studying process in Saudi Arabia to the requirements of the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposed strategies are significant because they serve as a basis for improving the educational process and concentrate on developing positive experiences for students who study English online in a remote format. Using such strategies is the next step to systematizing educational instruments and achieving higher performance levels in reading, listening, writing, and speaking activities. The study continues the research of challenges of online education started by Jaradat and Ajlouni (2021), improves the research results of Xu (2014) related to the role of technologies in the study of languages and cultures, creates the basis for narrowing the conclusions of Martin and Bolliger (2018) who analyzed the level of engagement of students in the educational process. Moreover, the current research deepens the perception of the challenges of online education presented by Gillett-Swan (2017) and other specialists.

In this context, the study identifies the themes of the importance of online learning for EFL teachers in Saudi Arabia, the presence of challenges in this area, the presentation of solutions to these challenges, and the identification of pedagogical opportunities of online teaching methods. These topics are united and illustrated in Figure 1 to make the content and the outcomes of the study more understandable.

Figure 1.

The map of correlations between the study findings.

Saudi teachers can be more prepared to deal with the challenges of teaching English online if they use all the proposed instruments to achieve educational aims in the new environment for communication. This can be done in pre-service TESOL programs or through in-service professional development opportunities. As a result, Saudi teachers will have the skills and knowledge to teach more effectively online. Furthermore, teachers having more time opens opportunities for communication, research, and work with gifted, average, and problematic students. From this point of view, the newly discovered benefits of the activity of EFL teachers who use online contact with students can serve as the background for the transformation of the education system and the growth of academic performance in schools and universities in Saudi Arabia.

Conclusion

The study explored various facets of online education, specifically targeting English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers and their students in Saudi Arabia, in the context of challenges brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic. The involvement of teachers from contemporary universities was pivotal in collecting relevant data. This data proved instrumental in pinpointing the challenges, suggesting viable solutions, and revealing pedagogical opportunities pertaining to online English teaching during these unprecedented times.

The invaluable input from these teachers yielded a plethora of practical and realistic strategies to enhance the educational landscape in Saudi Arabia. Their expertise and firsthand experiences acted as a catalyst for driving positive change within the online learning environment. It is noteworthy that the study uncovered both positive and negative aspects of the online education format in the context of studying foreign languages.

While the research findings hold significant value, it is essential to acknowledge certain limitations. One such limitation lies in the relatively small sample size used for data collection, which may have impacted the generalizability of the results. Additionally, the need for more extensive and relevant studies exploring remote education in Saudi Arabia and the need for teaching materials specifically tailored for online instruction pose further limitations to a comprehensive analysis of the topic. Finally, it is crucial to recognize the value of the current study, as it not only sheds light on the challenges faced by English language teachers in Saudi Arabia during the pandemic but also provides practical recommendations that can be directly implemented. These recommendations serve as valuable resources for teachers, empowering them to strengthen their pedagogical strategies within the online environment.