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Language Teaching during a

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DOI: 10.1177/0033688220981784
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ESL Teacher in Hong Kong

Anisa Cheung
Center for Language Education, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong

Abstract
This article reports a case study of an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher in Hong
Kong who conducted lessons via Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focused
on the factors influencing her technology integration in synchronous online teaching mode.
Using data from classroom recordings, stimulated-recall and semi-structured interviews, this
study uncovered how Zoom functioned as a substitute for face-to-face lessons. The findings
revealed that although there were fewer interactions between the teacher and her students,
teaching in synchronous online mode provided the teacher with opportunities to utilize certain
online features to augment methods of checking student understanding. The study identified the
teacher’s pedagogical beliefs, the context and professional development as factors that influenced
the level of technology integration in her Zoom classes. The study concludes that embracing
process-oriented pedagogies may be necessary for a higher level of technology integration among
ESL teachers who have adequate professional development opportunities and school support.

Keywords
Synchronous online teaching, technology-enhanced language learning, teacher beliefs,
pedagogies, ESL teaching

Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a rapid shift to remote teaching across all education
sectors. Among the various types of remote teaching, synchronous online teaching
through video conferencing platforms, such as Zoom, has become a common practice for
many English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers. Zoom is a web conferencing

Corresponding author:
Anisa Cheung, Center for Language Education, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Room
3416, Clearwater Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Email: laihang0623@gmail.com
2 RELC Journal 00(0)

application incorporating a range of functions such as chat, audio/video interaction and

interactive whiteboards. Although there were similar uses of synchronous online teach-
ing using video/web conferencing applications in school settings prior to COVID-19
(Stanley, 2017), video conferencing had not become common practice in ESL class-
rooms until the need for social distancing emerged during the coronavirus outbreak.
While there have been several investigations into ways to conduct synchronous online
teaching (e.g. Boettcher and Conrad, 2016; Peachey, 2017), there has been little school-
based research in this area. Against the increasing popularity of using the virtual class-
room to replace traditional classroom learning and home-schooling for core subjects
such as English (Manegre and Sabiri, 2020), the purpose of the present study was to
examine a scenario of one secondary ESL teacher delivering lessons via Zoom and the
factors influencing her ability to use the platform in her teaching. This findings of this
study will be useful in providing support and designing relevant training programmes for
ESL teachers working in similar contexts, delivering lessons in synchronous online
teaching mode.

Factors Influencing Teachers’ Level of Technology

Integration During Synchronous Online Teaching
Teachers generally experience an imbalance or ‘loss of a stable state’ when they shift
from traditional classroom-based teaching to online teaching (Comas-Quinn, 2011).
Such change can be particularly challenging for language teachers because the field
of English Language Teaching has been broadly underpinned by the Communicative
Language Teaching (CLT) paradigm with its emphasis on nurturing students’ com-
municative competence (Thornbury, 2016). Therefore, it appears timely to investigate
how ESL teachers working in school settings deliver lessons in synchronous online
teaching mode. Despite reports of ESL teachers’ positive attitude towards technology
use (e.g. Huang et al., 2019), their level of technology integration has remained low
(Bai and Lo, 2018). This points to the need to investigate the factors that mediate ESL
teachers’ level of technology integration. To illuminate ESL teachers’ integration of
technology, Li (2017) posited a technology integration framework that views factors
related to context (school, culture of learning and social values), teachers (compe-
tence and confidence, pedagogical beliefs), resources (time, software, access to tech-
nology) and professional development (training, learning community, support) as
interlocking factors when discussing teachers’ decision-making in the uptake of tech-
nology. This study modified different components of Li’s (2017) framework to
account for the nuances of teachers’ level of technology integration in synchronous
online teaching mode.
With regard to teacher-level factors, Compton (2009) developed a framework for
online language teaching that encompasses three domains, namely technology (which
refers to teachers’ knowledge and ability to handle hardware and software issues), peda-
gogy (which refers to teachers’ knowledge and ability to conduct and facilitate teaching
and learning activities) and evaluation (which refers to teachers’ ability to assess tasks
and make necessary modifications to ensure language learning objectives are met).
Guichon (2009) added the critical lens of socio-affective competence, which refers to a
Cheung 3

teacher’s capacity to establish a relationship with students at a distance. All these factors
highlight the skills that teachers need for ‘effective critical engagement using online and
other digitally enabled platforms’ (Lightfoot, 2019: 108) and echo the pivotal role of
teachers in effective integration of technology (Dong, 2018). However, given the inter-
relatedness of teacher knowledge, belief and affect noted in studies on teacher cognition
(Borg, 2019), the competences outlined by Compton (2009) and Guichon (2009) should
be seen as an integrated skill set.
The various factors related to teachers are tied to the professional development oppor-
tunities given to them. The concept of ‘learning community and support’ (Li, 2017) is
related to teacher learning in a community of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991), which
enables teachers to ‘participate, share experiences and respond to others’ (Parnham et al.,
2018: 3). This is exemplified in Bai et al.’s (2019) study that discovered that teachers’
help-seeking behaviour in relation to learning technology is associated with their contin-
ued use of technology. Given the complexity of teacher professional development in an
online learning environment (Trust, 2017), leadership and support from school is an
important institutional-level factor that mediates a teacher’s level of technology integra-
tion (Lawrence and Tar, 2018).
As for the teaching context, while the factors listed by Li (2017), that is, the school, the
culture of learning, and social values, reflect the socio-cultural influence of teachers’ deci-
sion-making (Johnson and Golombek, 2016), teachers’ interactions and rapport with the
students should also be considered since they not only affect teachers’ decision-making in
normal face-to-face settings (Orafi and Borg, 2009) but have also proved to be challeng-
ing in the context of online learning (Sharma and Westbrook, 2016).
‘Access to technology’ is an important factor mediating teachers’ technology integra-
tion level (Li, 2017: 205). Previous studies identified lack of resources (which includes
access to available technology, time and technical support provided by the school) as
barriers to technology integration (Bai and Lo, 2018). However, the ‘resources’ that
influence a teacher’s technology integration level in synchronous online teaching con-
texts – for example, during a pandemic when schools are closed – should also include the
teacher’s offline environment at home.
On these grounds, a framework adapted from Li (2017) exploring teachers’ level of
technology integration in synchronous online settings is illustrated in Figure 1. The
switch to online teaching mode during the COVID-19 pandemic offered ESL teachers
who are accustomed to face-to-face settings the opportunity to take ‘a closer look at
online teaching with fresh eyes and revitalize their teaching repertoire’ (Pu, 2020: 3).
However, most research on technology integration in ESL has placed the emphasis on
the influence of certain apps on students’ learning outcomes (Wang et al., 2015); there
has been scant attention on the pedagogical underpinnings of technology use (Haßler
et al., 2016). Yet, technology cannot replace pedagogy, which lies at the heart of teaching
expertise. To gauge teachers’ level of technology integration, Puentedura (2014) devised
the SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition) model to help
teachers analyse and devise their pedagogies with the support of technological tools
based on Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, which refers to the dynamic cognitive process
(e.g. remember, understand, apply) that students go through in various stages of learning
(Anderson et al., 2001).
4 RELC Journal 00(0)

Figure 1. Interlocking factors contributing to technology integration levels in synchronous

online teaching.
Source: adapted from Li (2017).

Puentedura’s (2014) model is built on the premise that when classroom tasks
move from the lower to higher stages of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (Figure 2(a)),
they also move to the more transformative levels of SAMR in the use of technology
(Figure 2(b)). Substitution and Augmentation (which are the enhancement levels of
SAMR) correspond to the three lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy (i.e. Remember,
Understand, Apply), while Modification and Redefinition (which are the transforma-
tion levels of SAMR) correspond to the upper levels of Bloom’s taxonomy (i.e.
Analyse, Evaluate, Create). Puentedura’s (2014) model, with a focus on teachers’ use
of technology, prompted Li (2019) to call for more studies examining how teachers
use technological tools for facilitating learning. Previous work investigating ESL
teachers’ beliefs, attitudes and use of technology in the classroom (Ding et al., 2019)
were mostly conducted in the context of blended learning modes where technology
is used as a tool to facilitate the delivery of face-to-face lessons rather than com-
pletely replacing it as in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic. Other studies examin-
ing the way language teachers deliver instruction at distance, in online and blended
teaching contexts, were conducted in tertiary settings (e.g. Fadda, 2019). There is a
paucity of empirical research on ESL teachers’ use of technology solely via synchro-
nous online teaching mode in school settings. Of greater importance, however, is the
need to depart from a heavy reliance on measuring teacher beliefs and attitudes, and
instead examine their actual practices in technology-enhanced language learning
(Arnold and Ducate, 2015). Such research is especially pertinent given the
Cheung 5

Figure 2a. Six stages of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (Anderson et al., 2001).
Figure 2b. The SAMR model of technology integration (Puentedura, 2014).

possibility that synchronous online teaching has become the new normal during the
pandemic and its influence is likely to endure in the post-COVID-19 era. As such,
this study aimed to bridge this gap by exploring teachers’ level of technology inte-
gration in synchronous online teaching mode. The current study proposed the fol-
lowing research questions:

•• How does an ESL teacher integrate technology in synchronous online teaching

mode?
•• What influenced her integration of technology when teaching in synchronous
online teaching mode?

Methodology
Bringing teachers’ practices and the factors influencing their level of technology inte-
gration in synchronous online teaching to the fore necessitated a research methodol-
ogy that seeks an in-depth understanding (Creswell and Poth, 2018) of teachers,
teaching, and context. Accordingly, the present study adopted an exploratory and
descriptive qualitative case-study approach (Merriam and Tisdell, 2015), to provide
an in-depth portrayal of one particular person to understand a phenomenon, in this
case, a teacher’s level of technology integration in synchronous online teaching mode.
The case-study approach was favoured due to its ability to unveil the ‘how’ or ‘why’
of a contemporary phenomenon (Yin, 2018). As Duff (2020: 147) put it, ‘a single,
very interesting or intriguing case can often provide a sufficiently rich account of the
phenomenon of interest’.
6 RELC Journal 00(0)

Table 1. Flowchart of the various stages of the research study.

Stage of the research Research methods used Research question answered

1 Semi-structured interview 2
2 16 lesson observations 1 and 2
16 post-lesson stimulated-
recall interviews

Participant
Typical case sampling (Cohen et al., 2017) was adopted in the current study. Grace (a
pseudonym) was invited to take part in the case study through the author’s network; her
academic background and teaching context were typical among experienced ESL teach-
ers in Hong Kong. Such a prototypical case is one of the rationales for single-case studies
(Yin, 2018). Grace has been an ESL teacher for 12 years after fulfilling the requirements
set by the Education Bureau (2004) for English language teachers in Hong Kong, that is,
to be subject trained in both their degrees (first and higher). She underwent teacher train-
ing via a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) after completing her Master of
Philosophy in English Literature and a bachelor’s degree in English.

Context
Upon the Education Bureau’s call for ‘suspending classes without suspending learning’,
(Education Bureau, 2020) school teachers in Hong Kong had to teach online from the onset
of the pandemic. This is the context through which Grace needed to deliver lessons in syn-
chronous online teaching mode. Grace’s school mainly admits students of average ability,
most coming from middle-class families. Her school operates under the Direct-Subsidy
Scheme (DSS) that collects school fees from parents on top of government subsidies.

Data Collection and Analysis

Data collection and analysis were conducted in a cyclical manner throughout the period
of fieldwork when Grace’s school required all teachers to conduct Zoom lessons from
April to July 2020. This means that each successive stage of the data analysis was influ-
enced by the analysis of the data already collected. The sequence is outlined in Table 1.
Appropriate ethical procedures were followed and consent was obtained.
The cyclical manner of data collection and analysis is described below in four stages.

Stage 1: I conducted a 1-h semi-structured pre-observation interview with Grace in

early April to establish a profile of her educational background, teaching experience,
beliefs about technology integration, and general views on ESL teaching. The list of
questions in the interview protocol (Appendix 1) was drawn from the themes in the
theoretical framework (Figure 1). The interview was conducted in Cantonese
(Grace’s first language) to avoid any potential communication breakdowns. I
recorded and subsequently translated and transcribed the interview. I analysed the
Cheung 7

interview data through two levels of coding following Miles et al. (2018). First, I
adopted descriptive coding – labelling the data based on the themes in the theoretical
framework (Figure 1); I then generated pattern codes to identify emergent themes
from the data. The themes generated from the interview provided me with a lens for
the lesson observations.
Stage 2: Sixteen unstructured lesson observations were conducted during the period of
fieldwork. Synchronous online teaching mode via Zoom facilitated the adoption of
online observation in the current study (see Androutsopoulos, 2014) during which I took
the role of a non-participant observer. I took field notes during the observation to record
my emerging thoughts, which facilitated the later analysis of observational data.
Stage 3: I inductively analysed the observational data after each lesson for key informa-
tive episodes, that is, classroom incidents that generated questions about the rationale of
the level of technology integration. The questions raised from the observational data
provided the basis for the post-lesson stimulated-recall interviews, which involved
watching the episodes with Grace and inviting her to comment on her thinking in a rela-
tively free and open-ended manner (see Borg, 2015) to explore the rationales underlying
her pedagogical decisions in relation to her level of technology integration. The stimu-
lated-recall interviews were conducted soon after the lessons (never longer than 2 days)
to ensure that Grace’s memory of the lessons was as fresh as possible. Grace also chose
certain episodes that she wanted to discuss. The discussion of episodes jointly selected by
Grace and me aligns with the trend in educational research to be more participant-ori-
ented (Rose et al., 2020). All stimulated-recall interviews were conducted in Cantonese
and were audio recorded, translated into English and transcribed verbatim.
Stage 4: I achieved the purpose of ‘explanation building’ in case study (Yin, 2018:
275) through both theoretical propositions (i.e. linking the data to themes derived
from the theoretical framework (Figure 1) and research questions) and analysing data
from the ground up (i.e. identifying themes that emerged from Grace’s data induc-
tively). Finally, I returned all interviews to Grace for member checking.

Findings and Discussion

The findings guided by the two research questions are presented below and are discussed
in relation to Puentedura’s (2014) SAMR model of technology integration (Figure 2(b)),
and the theoretical framework (Figure 1). Research Question 1 was answered using data
from the observation findings while Research Question 2 was answered using data from
the semi-structured interview and post-lesson stimulated-recall interviews.

Research Question 1
•• How does an ESL teacher integrate technology in synchronous online teaching
mode?

Throughout all the lessons observed, Grace’s level of technology integration mostly
remained at the level of Substitution in Puentedura’s (2014) SAMR model, that is, using
8 RELC Journal 00(0)

PowerPoint slides and Microsoft Word files to deliver the content that would normally
be covered in a face-to-face lesson, with no functional change. Similar to the teachers in
Tour’s (2015) study, Grace did not fully utilize the pedagogical advantage of the tech-
nologies available. Occasionally (5 out of 16 lessons), Grace moved to the level of
Augmentation, that is, using technological devices as substitutes with functional
improvement. In cases where Grace moved to this level, she played Kahoot! games with
students as a form of classroom assessment to check students’ understanding and to com-
ment on their performance. Comprising the same format as the traditional grammar exer-
cises, Kahoot! games enabled Grace to comment on her students’ performance and
provided clarification on the spot. For example, she explained certain questions in a more
in-depth manner when few or no students could answer the questions correctly. The use
of Kahoot! resulted in near whole-class engagement while offering openings for indi-
vidual practise at the same time (see Caukin and Trail, 2019). Overall speaking, Grace’s
technology integration in the Zoom lessons remained at the enhancement levels of the
Puentedura’s (2014) SAMR model (i.e. Substitution and Augmentation), with little or no
change to the design of learning and teaching activities.
Since Grace mainly adopted a didactic teaching approach, there were not many oppor-
tunities for the students to interact with Grace or their fellow classmates. The most inter-
active action in the Zoom lessons was when students played the Kahoot! game. It is
believed that teaching and learning becomes more student-centred when the classroom
tasks move up through the levels in the SAMR model because the transformation levels
of the SAMR model build practice that is mediated by the social use of technological
tools where students act as peer mentors (Puentedura, 2016). However, as Grace did not
design any tasks that required her students to interact with each other, the teaching and
learning activities in the Zoom lessons remained at the enhancement levels.

Research Question 2
•• What influenced her integration of technology when teaching in synchronous
online teaching mode?

Teachers: Pedagogical Beliefs. Grace mentioned that her pedagogy is tied to the examina-
tion syllabus,

My pedagogy has to meet the needs for equipping students to take the DSE [Diploma of
Secondary School Exam]. That’s why it’s all about teaching vocabulary, grammar rules, and
analysing past papers (Pre-observation interview).

This excerpt reveals Grace’s form-focused, exam-oriented pedagogies. Adopting such

transmissive pedagogies is likely to result in teachers’ level of technology integration
remaining at the enhancement levels since the transformation levels require teachers to
adopt relatively more student-centred learning principles. However, when process-ori-
ented pedagogies are not common in face-to-face classroom settings, it is doubtful that
teachers will stray from their usual practice of didactic pedagogy in a synchronous online
teaching context. In light of this, teacher’s level of technology integration seems to be
Cheung 9

largely mediated by their beliefs, in both face-to-face settings (see Nikou and Economides,
2019) and synchronous online teaching contexts.

Teachers: Competence and Confidence in Terms of Pedagogy, Technology and Evalua-

tion. Grace’s limited technological ability was another factor steering her towards a low
level of technology integration. Although she expressed confidence in her technical abil-
ity to conduct Zoom lessons, Grace revealed that she did not know how to use the break-
out room function, the setting that allows teachers to divide the class into small groups
for discussion. This possibly contributed to the lack of student–student interaction in her
Zoom lessons. Grace claimed that monitoring students and checking their understanding
was her greatest challenge in conducting Zoom lessons,

In face-to-face situations, I know what the students are doing and if they are off-task. However,
it is really hard to tell in Zoom. I really don’t know if students are learning. Through their
responses in the Kahoot! game, I can see what mistakes they are making and how much they
can understand. However, the effectiveness is still unknown (Stimulated-recall interview,
Lesson 2).

This quote reveals that Grace perceived evaluation as the greatest problem in the Zoom
lessons. When she experienced difficulties in checking students’ understanding, her goal
of the Zoom lessons became to ‘only cover the school syllabus’. This situation led to
Substitution being the default level of technology integration with occasional instances
of Augmentation when Grace used Kahoot!. Moving to a higher level of technology
integration requires teachers to design tasks that are based on students’ understanding.
However, it may be difficult for teachers to design tasks at the higher levels of Puentedura’s
model (2014) when they already experience difficulties designing tasks at the lowest
level, that is, checking students’ understanding. Consequently, the normal, if not the ideal
outcome when delivering lessons in a synchronous online setting, would be for the stu-
dents to simply ‘remember’ the content covered in the lesson.

Professional Development. Grace preferred a more hands-on approach for professional

development in integrating technology in her daily teaching:

The school encouraged us to attend the professional development courses related to e-learning
organized by the Education Bureau or universities. But I never sign up. The courses are not
useful. After attending those courses, you cannot retain the new knowledge. A hands-on menu
about the software/apps would be more useful. Also, I don’t want to use my after-work hours to
attend courses when my daily teaching workload is already heavy (Pre-observation interview).

This excerpt suggests that a hands-on approach in the form of a user menu would be
more practical for in-service ESL teachers when it comes to professional development.
While the heavy teaching workload contributed to Grace’s lack of time for developing
her online skills, she never mentioned seeking out or watching any of the online tutorials
freely available from multiple sources (including Zoom itself) that explain to viewers
how to effectively teach with Zoom (Dottotech, 2020). These self-help sites offer ‘just in
time’ professional development that is closely connected to the needs of daily teaching
10 RELC Journal 00(0)

(Lightfoot, 2019). However, Grace seemed to experience a lack of space to learn differ-
ent technologies related to teaching through Zoom (see Taghizedeh and Yourdshahi,
2019). Grace’s disengagement from professional development and the resulting weak
effort in applying e-learning tools may have been caused by her teaching context, which
included the school culture.

Context: Home, School and Culture of Learning. Grace claimed that she was technologi-
cally well-equipped at home to conduct Zoom lessons. She normally delivered the les-
sons in her study, which was free from background noise and had a stable Internet
connection. Thus, Grace was in a relatively advantageous position in terms of resources.
However, Grace mentioned that her school was not enthusiastic about online teaching:

At the beginning of the pandemic, we didn’t have any Zoom lessons. When we read from the
news that a DSS school conducted Zoom lessons till 4 pm, our colleagues felt that they were
just showing off. That’s why our school did not follow. It’s only at a later date, when some
parents complained about not having online lessons that we started to have Zoom lessons (Pre-
observation interview).

This excerpt revealed that the move to conduct lessons in synchronous online mode was
due to complaints from parents, which reflects the consumer-oriented culture of DSS
schools. Compared with other schools in Hong Kong, Grace’s school reacted to the need
for online learning during the pandemic in a rather passive way (see Pao, 2020), which
indirectly affected her level of technology integration. Rather than taking the lead to
establish a community of practice for online teaching, Grace’s school began delivering
Zoom lessons only after receiving complaints from parents. Thus, the school’s lackadai-
sical approach towards e-learning may have further contributed to Grace’s apathy.
Therefore, the connection between school culture, professional development and teacher
knowledge seems to have created a self-perpetuating cycle leading to a low level of tech-
nology integration in Grace’s Zoom lessons.

Context: Teachers’ Interaction with Students. Interaction with students in an online setting
presents both opportunities and challenges. Because Grace felt that conducting Zoom
lessons was like ‘talking to the air’, she found it difficult to have the interaction normally
seen in face-to-face lessons. Compounding this silence, she would mute all her students
during Zoom lessons, which only added to the teacher-centred monologue. She relied
only on a very limited set of virtual interaction tools such as asking students to complete
Google forms or play Kahoot! games to check students’ understanding:

In normal face-to-face lessons, I do not use apps like Kahoot! since if I allow them to use their
Ipad/mobile phones during the lessons, they will go off task and do other things, such as checking
their Facebook or Instagram. However, during the period of lesson suspension, playing Kahoot!
games and asking students to complete Google forms are very common as I cannot think of other
ways to check students’ understanding (Stimulated-recall interview, Lesson 5).

This excerpt suggests that the Zoom lessons provided teachers with more opportuni-
ties to use interactive apps. Although Grace’s belief that using certain apps on mobile
Cheung 11

devices can lead students off task hindered the integration of technology during face-
to-face lessons (see Van Praag and Sanchez, 2015), it appeared that changing to
online teaching led Grace to recognize the use of certain apps for checking students’
understanding.

Conclusions and Implications

This study set out to investigate the phenomenon of one ESL teacher delivering her
lessons in synchronous online teaching mode and the factors influencing her level of
technology integration. This responds to the call for more studies on teachers’ sub-
ject-specific technology-related behaviour (Liu et al., 2017). Despite the small sam-
ple of one ESL teacher, the study may have resonance for other ESL contexts. The
findings revealed that in most cases, Zoom was simply used as a tool for the teacher
to deliver the content that would have been covered in a face-to-face setting, with few
opportunities to interact with students and check their understanding. Grace’s level of
technology integration seemed to bear resemblance to the teachers in Cheung (2021)
study where teachers were merely concerned about completing the course compo-
nents with the aim of helping students pass the exams, resulting in a reluctance to
implement any innovative pedagogies with technology. This appears to be especially
the case where tasks at the higher levels of SAMR model are at odds with the exam-
oriented curriculum.
Such findings yield insight for the application of the SAMR model in language teach-
ing pedagogies. It appears that the enhancement levels are more suited to form-focused
grammar–translation pedagogies, which cater for individualistic learning styles, whereas
the transformation levels of the SAMR model are more suited to the cooperative learning
principles in CLT or task-based language teaching (Richards and Rodgers, 2014). This
gives credence to the findings in Taghizadeh and Yourdshahi’s (2019) study that teachers
who favoured student-centred pedagogies tended to display higher levels of technology
integration. Although the presentation–practise–production (PPP) lesson format (Harmer,
2015) is deemed more suitable for form-focused, exam-oriented curricula in Hong Kong
(Carless, 2009), the SAMR model could be applied in conjunction with PPP at different
stages of a Zoom lesson. For example, as Grace did, the lesson could start with presenta-
tion at the Substitution level, where the teacher uses PowerPoint/Microsoft Word to pre-
sent the target language features. Apps could then be used for controlled practise at the
Augmentation level in which students practise the target language features through drills
and transformations (e.g. Google Docs or the interactive whiteboard on Zoom), gap-
filling or cloze activities (e.g. Quizizz) and multiple choice questions (e.g. Kahoot!).
Lastly, students could produce the structure of the target language features learnt in freer
communicative contexts through dialogues (with their peers in breakout rooms) and
other activities at the Modification level (e.g. sharing their completed task on Padlet, rat-
ing their classmates’ work and giving comments to each other). Such an approach would
reap the benefits of clearer presentation, which may lead to students’ enhanced engage-
ment (Li, 2014), with teachers having more opportunities to offer students real-time
feedback in the practise stage and students being able to rate and learn from each other
in the production stage
12 RELC Journal 00(0)

The findings indicate that factors related to pedagogical beliefs, professional devel-
opment and context are intertwined when it comes to exploring ESL teachers’ level of
technology integration in synchronous online teaching mode. For example, when a
teacher believes in the importance of grammar–translation pedagogy to help their stu-
dents master the accuracy of linguistic forms for the exam, their pedagogy is unlikely
to change even in an online setting. In this case, their level of technology integration
may remain low since their pedagogical objectives are the same, that is, equipping
students with the knowledge needed for exams. However, a higher level of technology
integration requires teachers to move from transmissive to constructivist pedagogies
(Liu et al., 2017). When constructivist pedagogies are absent in face-to-face settings,
it may be even more difficult to introduce innovative pedagogies at the higher end of
technology integration in synchronous online settings. This is likely to particularly be
the case when schools are not technologically advanced. Further, when teachers are
burdened with a heavy workload, it is challenging to take the time and effort to become
proficient in using the technical tools available for better student-centred learning.
This points to the need ‘to carry out more contextualized research to help teachers of
particular backgrounds use technology at an optimal level’ (Sun and Mei, 2020: 2),
especially during this pandemic when technology is playing an increasingly prominent
role in ESL teaching and learning. While this study provides a glimpse into ESL teach-
ers teaching in synchronous online mode, future research could provide a descriptive
understanding of how ESL learners in different contexts utilize remote-learning
resources to enhance their language proficiency during periods of face-to-face lesson
suspension, to further develop insights into ways of enhancing students’ language pro-
ficiency in out-of-class settings.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

ORCID iD
Anisa Cheung https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1610-4192

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Appendix 1 Semi-structured Interview Protocol

Interview Questions
Section 1: Teachers
1. Can you briefly talk about your teaching experience and academic background?
2. Can you briefly describe your language learning pedagogies as a teacher?
3. What’s your view on the Zoom English lessons/the need to switch to online
teaching mode in COVID-19?
4. How will you evaluate your mastery of Zoom?
5. How will you comment on your own level of technology integration in your nor-
mal teaching (in both online and face-to-face mode)?
6. What’s the difference between Zoom lessons and face-to-face lessons?
16 RELC Journal 00(0)

Section 2: Professional Development

1. Did you receive any IT training before?
2. What kind of support were you given when learning to teach English through
Zoom?

Section 3: Context
1. When did the school make the decision to have Zoom lessons during lesson
suspension?
2. How would you describe your interaction with students in face-to-face situations
before COVID-19? How has this changed in Zoom?

Section 4: Resources
1. Covid-19 has affected the personal lives of nearly everyone. What are the changes
in your personal life from Covid-19? How might these changes influence your
delivery of Zoom lessons?
2. How would you describe the physical setting in your home? Does it facilitate or
restrain your working from home and delivering Zoom lessons?