The Effectiveness and Challenges of Online Teaching of EFL Teachers in the COVID-19 Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic compelled most countries in the world to implement online teaching. However, not all countries were ready to do that. This study aimed to assess the efficacy of online teaching implementation as well as to investigate the perceptions of teachers and the challenges faced by fifty senior high schools in East Java, Indonesia, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study involved 150 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers and utilized both quantitative and qualitative data. The research employed questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to collect data. The questionnaires consisted of twenty-five questions with seven categories: student-faculty contact, cooperation among students, active learning, prompt feedback, time on task, high expectations, and diverse talents in ways of learning, which were delivered to 150 English teachers. The semi-structured interview with twenty-five EFL teachers focused on the English teachers' challenges and actions to deal with the challenges during online teaching implementation. To analyze the quantitative data, the researcher used descriptive statistics, and for the qualitative data, the researcher transcribed the semi-structured interview results and continued with data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. The findings indicated that online teaching implementation was challenging. The teachers faced six significant challenges during online teaching implementation: internet access, students' economy, students' psychology, lack of facilities, time constraints, and the teachers' and students' technology competencies.