In addition to the sudden advent of LMS systems, the interview participants put major efforts into experimenting with technologies for operating a successful, learner-centred, synchronous video-based teaching environment. Participants held video lessons using Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams. Erika reasoned that Zoom was the best platform for language development and methodology classes because its breakout room feature was already given, and in Microsoft Teams, it was only a later software update that brought about the possibility of assigning meeting participants to random breakout rooms. Erika and Evelyn realised that their organisation skills also improved, they had to develop more detailed plans for their lessons.

Some instructors experienced changes or problems brought about by the online teaching periods both regarding learners and instructors. Gábor said that some of his students were unable to access the LMS system. Zsombor realised that he did not like uploading video-based lectures because without an audience, he himself felt demotivated. Dóra, Éva and Richárd also perceived no matter how interactive an online lecture was trying to be, students could not be effectively engaged. Zsombor also said that he preferred live lectures because he could not even recycle recorded ones, as every year he changed the lectures a little bit as he followed the research of the field. László observed that some instructors went to the extremes when they were trying to compensate for the lack of synchronous classes and burdened their students with too many written assignments to which meaningful feedback was rarely given. László even added that some colleagues “took a leave of absence”, uploaded some materials, set an end-term test or exam date, and vanished. Kálmán said that in some cases, his perceptions could be compared to the tale of The emperor’s new clothes; methodology teachers experienced much stress because they were suddenly expected to turn their courses online as well as offer digital methodological help.

Éva said, “I think methodology teachers should be trained too about recent technologies in the world because they can link it to their methodological expertise and their experiences can trigger a thinking process of how these [digital tools] could be included in their teaching”. Éva and László found that this could be best ensured by creating local hubs, where colleagues brainstorm and inform one another about the digital possibilities linked to their specific needs. At Erzsébet’s university, there was a frequently updated and maintained collection of digital activities and shared materials for the courses of the institute. László, as the leader of a project at his university, surveyed what the main reasons were behind continuous aversion towards technology inclusion in the times of the pandemic and found that the main reasons were 1) anxiety the instructors felt because they were afraid if they could operate the necessary technologies, and 2) anxiety of losing face in front of the learners if something went wrong with technology. He noticed that these beliefs could be altered best if the support of technology inclusion reaches a critical mass within a department.

Magdolna had been holding online ICT training courses well before the pandemic, but she perceived that during Covid, most questions she received in the training regarded the very operational levels of LMS systems and Zoom, and how to make sure that testing could remain reliable in the online environment. The interview participants used several different testing tools; Albert used feedback tools such as Mentimeter or Answergarden (https://answergarden.ch/) for quick response tests and László used Kahoot!. Erika and Evelyn favoured Google Forms because collecting the answers could be switched off when the set time limit expired. Richárd used Moodle-based tests, and Albert tried UniPoll, both of which were favoured by them because they were official testing possibilities at their universities, and they make it possible to design question pools out of which students get a set number of randomised test items – thus making sure that their attempts remain fair.

Others, however, claimed that in a completely digital environment, traditional testing could never be made fair and valid, and such testing practices should be abandoned. Erika rather applied project methods in which she asked her learners to design and implement problem-based (e.g., methodological problem, or other issues linked to language development) presentations. Richárd and Magdolna also favoured project-based alternative assessment; they set a number of portfolio criteria, a minimum number of points to be collected by learners, and students had to work on collecting the necessary portfolio elements to receive a final grade for the seminar (such as activity plans, reflections, critical analyses). According to Éva, a welcome effect of the pandemic regarding teachers’ technological pedagogical skills and project-based approaches could be that “[they] got a little insight into the fact that they can really do it”.

 

Nonetheless, through personal experiences, the participants expressed some unwelcome effects of the spring and autumn 2020 digital teaching periods especially regarding younger learners and those who struggled to have access to education from the distance (Hermann et al., 2021; Molnár et al., 2021). Perhaps technology’s biggest role was that unlike throughout previous pandemics in history, education had somewhere to move and the idea of establishing a remote connection between learners and teachers did not have to be completely abandoned. In Hungary, since the early stages of ICT use, researchers pointed out the importance of having a critical mass who already had the positive experiences to be shared with colleagues about the importance and advantages of techno-inclusive education (Kárpáti, 2012; Molnár, 2011). The pandemic might have resulted in even more teachers becoming part of this mass.

Finally, perhaps the most fundamental problems of online education originated from digital testing. Those action researchers engaged in online teaching and virtual exchange projects before the pandemic accentuate the importance of abandoning traditional testing methods in the online space (Kóris et al., 2020a; Tartsayné Németh, 2012). As opposed to going at lengths to ensure the reliability and validity of online tests that mirror traditional ones, a completely new perspective should be adapted and focus should shift towards alternative, formative assessment such as project works, portfolio evaluation or research-based activities (Kóris et al., 2021). While this might not be a solution that could be applied to all kinds of subjects found in English Studies / EFL teacher education programmes, it would still be advisable for instructors to think it through how their traditional assessment practices could be substituted with other alternatives. Another frequently mentioned problem related to the issue of compensating for the lack of the usual amount and/or quality of contact between instructors and learners during Covid was teachers overcompensating with written assignments. These instances might have seemed to be viable alternatives to make sure learners studied during the pandemic at first, but they could much rather have contributed to some learners’ growing apathy towards unengaging online instruction (Fekete & Divéki, 2022; Majó-Petri et al., 2021).