Crisis online teaching during COVID-19 : Swedish upper secondary English teachers’ perspectives

Abstract: During March 2020, Swedish upper secondary schools switched from traditional teaching to crisis online teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a lack of research on crisis online teaching, but there is research on online teaching and English online teaching. The fundamental difference between online teaching and crisis online teaching is choice, as crisis online teaching is mandated due to external factors beyond the teachers’ control. Transition from traditional teaching to crisis online teaching forces teachers to rely on their Technical Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). This was an instrumental case study using a semi-structured in-depth interview with a non-probability purpose sample that examined how three experienced English teachers in Western Sweden modified their teaching as well as the challenges and opportunities they experienced during crisis online teaching. Time was found to be a factor that affected crisis online teaching because the teachers interviewed reported that they were given two days to prepare in which they also had professional development to learn new platforms. In regard to professional development, teachers needed more and differentiated professional development due to teachers’ different levels of TPACK. The professional development also needed to explicitly show teachers to integrate the digital tools and platforms into their English teaching.