- Good morning everyone.

My name is le thi minh Phuong, English teacher of basic English

department. Today I would like to talk about the challenges and some suggestions for effective
online teaching and learning of basic English.
- my presentation is just like a sharing from my personal experience, it is not really a formal
scientific research, and to save time, I only present the main parts which include introduction,
drawbacks and challenges of online teaching, some suggestions to enhance the effectiveness of
online teaching and conclusion.
- firstly, about the introduction.
As you know, the covid 19 epidemic widespread has affected the whole world seriously, and the
education sector is not an exception. Education sector of Vietnam faces enormous challenges
including how to connect with students and ensure the continuity of teaching and learning in this
period. Many schools have to switch from traditional education to online education, and
Vietnam Maritime university is not an exception. Although this new mode of learning brings a
lot of benefits and opportunities for students like enhancing independence, developing computer
skills, flexible learning, it also creates a number of difficulties for learners and educators.
- As educators, my general English division has to teach a wide range of level and participants
from university. The most population is to teach basic English for non-linguistic majors students,
their level range from A1 to A2 and the main course book is American English file. The second
participants are students from EES department who study TOEIC 4 skills, and the third one is
students from ISE who study basic ielts skills. Sometimes, we teach IELTS foundation for major
linguistics students form ATM and NNA.
- nowadays, there are many technological apps for teaching online, the common ones are gg
meet, zoom, trans, Microsoft teams, gg classroom and Moodle, the most frequently used app of
my division is gg meet, according to the requirement of our university.
- with this current context, we face abundant challenges when teaching online.

1. One of the foremost challenges faced is adaptability to the computer-based instruction in a

virtual classroom. It is not easy for some students to make a switch from traditional face to face
instruction to online learning and it may result in students being resistant to adapt to this new
learning experience. Therefore, teachers should create a positive impression about virtual
learning on students’ mind. Teachers should make students feel that online learning is far more
interesting and provides a different learning experience. Training should be provided before
actually delivery of the lessons. Students should also be given time to have discussions with their
peers, so that they can approach online learning with more affinity and involve themselves in
virtual learning with an open mind.

2. Another challenge exposed by e-learning is computer literacy. Some students may be experts
in technology, yet for some students, use of computers to attend a virtual class or learning a new
concept can be a real nightmare. Lack of basic computer skills makes these students face a lot of
difficulty to manage their study and also demotivate their interest in the lesson. In order so solve
this problem, it is essential that before teaching, these students must be given courses and
training to develop their basic computer skills, like Microsoft Word (creating folders and saving
files), making Power Point presentations, how to access and upload files etc. I myself
experienced this problem when asking my students to submit their writing assignments in gg
drive. Many of them didn’t know how to upload files into gg drive and had to ask their friends
for help. Therefore, when students are equipped with these skills, they will find it easier to
manage themselves to go online and take part in learning going on.

3. One more area where the students find difficulty is the problem of technical issues. A large
number of students face the problem of poor network connection. Not every student has access to
internet connection in their accommodation to ensure the smooth experience of online learning.
Most of the students live in towns away from the cities where the bandwidth is low. It is difficult
for these students to be online for classes. In order to overcome this problem, many students use
their mobile phones to gain access to their online classes, which is financially not viable for all.
4. Another problem is demotivation. There are a variety of reasons for demotivation, for
example, they are not familiar with the use of technology and can’t use the platform of education
institution. Some students don’t have their own computers or laptop. Some have to borrow from
their friends or family members. Lack of motivation, they could not develop positive attitude to
motivate themselves to catch up with teaching-learning taking place online. Consequently, they
fell behind in all areas of learning and could not reap the positive outcomes that online learning
has to offer.
5. Another challenge is that the students cannot manage their time efficiently. Many students
complained because they lacked of time in finishing assigned tasks or activities because they are
not familiar with new mode of learning.

6. One of the most frequent challenges faced when teaching and learning online is distraction.
Students can be easily distracted by other technology devices and do not pay attention to the
lesson. They just join the class with mute microphone, turn off camera and then then can sleep or
watch films, surf the net, check messages in social networking sites.

7. Lack of interaction is also another challenge. In traditional classroom, teacher can easily
interact with students and observe the student’s understanding and motivation in class. However,
it is more difficult in a virtual classroom. The lack of interaction causes students to feel bored
and tired. Sometimes the online lessons include mostly theory and do not let students have the
chance to practice what they have learned.

8. Last but not least, too much time spending online teaching and learning can harm physical
health of teachers and learners. Sitting still in front of computer many hours a day can harm their
eyes sight. This also can make them feel tired and bored when not having much time for other
physical activities.

- with these drawbacks and challenges, I would like to suggestions some solutions for a more
effective online teaching – learning.

1. The use of suitable online platforms

One of the strategies to enhance online teaching and learning is by adopting suitable online
platform to carry out teaching and learning. These apps and online plat- forms are affordable in
terms of cost, more user-friendly and manage to attract students’ participation in the teaching and
learning. Now, we are using gg meet for delivering the lesson, however, it exposes some
drawbacks when it is not suitable for group work or pair work discussion. To tackle this problem,
we try to make our lessons more interactive by designing more interesting activities for students.
For example, to help students learn grammar, we find and design tasks in quizzes, watch videos
with questions in iscollective, youtube-> show examples

Help students learn vocab, we use wordwall, quizzes, flashcards -> show examples

Help students learn writing, we use padlet -> show examples. This can also be used for checking
attendance.

To create lecture slides with audio recording, we use voicethread which enhance more
interaction with students. -> show examples

2. Enhancing students’ interaction with other students

Interactive technology, for example, discussion forums, VoiceThread are successful learning
tools since they encourage collaboration, dialogue, and creativity. We live in a society where
university students are connected to their mobile phones. VoiceThread is one example of
technology that can be combined with group assignments to enhance student-to-student
interactions. The students are able to communicate across the Internet and share documents via
the VoiceThread tool. Students are able to record their assignments using a smartphone or tablet.
The recording can be shared with classmates via a link.

3. Enhancing students’ interaction with technology

Technology becomes a vital medium of the interaction and students should be taught and
supported in order to enhance their interaction with technology. Course instructors should be
able to utilize technology well in teaching and learning. Students should also have the knowledge
and skills to make effective use of technology for enhanced learning. Learners should be trained
on how best they could utilize the technology. There should also be constant support for students
in instances where they may face technical glitches as they use technology.

- Conclusion

To conclude, online learning environments offer tremendous educational opportunities in the

time of pandemic. However, there can be barriers to learning if educators ignore the problems
they may create. It is advisable for education institutions to take these problems into account and
consider the possible suggestions so as to optimize the learning process of learners.