Challenges experienced by tertiary level EFL instructors and students during Covid-19 pandemic

The aim of this case study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of EFL instructors and students of an English language preparatory program of a foundation university in Turkey regarding the challenges they faced due to the Covid-19 pandemic-induced online education and the solutions they produced to cope with these challenges. For this mixed-methods case study, the quantitative data were collected from 60 instructors and 110 students through instructor and student questionnaires. To gather the qualitative data, focus group interviews were conducted with 12 instructors and individual interviews with 14 students. The quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential analysis, and content analysis was used for the analysis of the qualitative data. The results revealed that the main difficulties for the participants were a lack of training for online education and internet connection problems. The instructors thought their workload was increased as they had to provide extra guidance to the students. For the students, distractions at home and lack of interaction with their peers were the main challenges. The instructors also had positive experiences about acquiring more competence in teaching online, and the students were satisfied with the support and guidance they received from the instructors.