Using Distance EdTech for Remote Foreign Language Teaching During the COVID-19 Lockdown in Ukraine

Abstract

The situation with a coronavirus challenged the education system and forced educators to shift to a fully E-learning. Many academic institutions were not ready for such a rapid change. The remote learning of foreign languages during the COVID-19 lockdown caused modern teaching technologies to expand the scope of the educational process, broaden its practical orientation, contribute to the intensification of students’ independent work, increasing their cognitive activity. The goals of the article include: to define types and specifics of modern edTech for the educational process on the way of transition from no E-Learning to fully E-Learning; to eliminate the role of the Internet as means of information and communication edTech in teaching foreign languages at higher education establishments; to find out the ways of improving students’ learning at higher educational establishments, the importance of using distance edTechs and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Challenges (SWOC) analysis of E-learning techniques during the pandemic lockdown. This article also provides the examples of usage of different edTechs in Ukrainian higher education establismens in general. Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University, Lviv State University of Life Safety, Odesa National Maritime University in particular.