Strategies for student engagement in remote online learning. A case study of Northern Cyprus

Abstract

In unprecedented times like this when societies are experiencing lockdowns, social, and physical distancing, remote online learning becomes the only option for most educational institutions. There is a need for English Language Teaching practitioners to devise strategic means either through technology or without to meaningfully engage the students. This study examines learners’ engagement strategies used during remote online learning at Northern Cyprus. To achieve this, a mixed research design was used to elicit information from 63 ELT teachers who were purposively chosen for this research. A 3-credit English language course was used for the study. The course was taught and teachers deployed the use of engagement tools, skills, and resources during the remote online learning teaching period, which lasted for 8 weeks and 2 days. A structured questionnaire consisting of two sections; A and B were used to elicit information on the resources used for student engagements and its effectiveness as well while a semi-structured interview question was used to interview randomly chosen participants. These instruments were faced, and the construct validated while the questionnaire was piloted, a Cronbach alpha reliability index of 0.77 was obtained. Descriptive analysis was used to analyze the questionnaire to determine the mean responses of the participants with regards to resources used for student engagement and their effectiveness. Findings obtained were used to conclusions that online resources like Padlets, Mentimeter, nearpod, Flipgrid, Zoom breakout room are effective and efficient tool for student engagement during remote online learning. Project based learning and collaborative based teaching are strategies that could be adopted to enhance student engagement while teaching