English Teaching Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: Teacher Issues and Challenges

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the globe and every strata of community. Effects can be seen in almost all sectors, education being one of the sectors which was greatly impacted. UNICEF cited a number of 1.6 billion children of schooling age affected by the pandemic. Countries all over the world including Malaysia started working on alternatives to ensure that the learning of schooling children continues throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The approach chosen by the Malaysian Ministry of Education was to disseminate classes and lessons via online platforms otherwise known as the practice of e-learning. With existing issues of access and gaps in achievement between the rural and urban communities it was a point of interest to investigate how teachers in different contexts dealt with the e-learning initiative. In this study, the aim was to measure the attitude of the teacher, their level of technological literacy and the challenges that they face despite of their context. The study was conducted as an online survey involving all the English Teachers in the Limbang district with the total population of English teachers amounting to 103. The return rate of the survey generated 50 responses and the gaps in the research were bridged with a protocoled focus group discussion with 5 teachers. This study echoed the findings of previous studies and highlights pertinent issues which must be dealt with before e-learning can be a strong and viable alternative learning mode for Malaysians