Victoria Thomas, University of Shimane
This semester has been a new and bewildering experience for students, staff, and faculty at the University of Shimane. Not only are classes online, but also social events are cancelled, employees are allowed to work from home, and people are maintaining social distance. This situation is stressful for students, staff, and faculty alike. As a teacher, I will explain the situation from my perspective.
My teaching adaptations for COVID-19 actually began at my previous teaching post in America. At me previous institution, we were in winter term from January to March, so we had to make sudden changes to our classes near the end of the term. The administration tried to avoid disrupting our schedules, but in the end, instructors were given four days’ notice to move final exams completely online. The situation was chaotic for everyone, but we adapted and finished the term.
I then moved to Japan to start my position at the University of Shimane. At the end of my two weeks of quarantine, I emerged to find a relatively calm situation. Some people were saying that classes would be in person; others claimed that they would be moved online. The starting date of the semester was extended twice, over a month in total, and we were officially informed at the beginning of May that classes would be online, starting May 11th.
My Intermediate English/Paragraph Writing course was not too difficult to move online, as I have previously taught online writing courses. In video classes, I give short lectures on PowerPoint, and we work on writing exercises together. If the students cannot attend the day’s lecture due to technology problems, they can read the PowerPoint on Moodle and the pages from the textbook, and I answer questions by email or Zoom. The homework for each week is listed in the syllabus and organized by week on Moodle, so my students can find their assignments for the week without having to contact me.
My Communication classes are also partially accessible on Moodle; however, they require more creativity for speaking and listening. The English teachers had to find ways to lead in-class speaking activities online, giving all students as much time as possible to speak English and engage in listening activities. After exploring the technology options with Steve Henneberry, Melissa Huntley organized several technology workshops for the new faculty to help us understand Moodle and Zoom so that we could use them effectively in our classes. Due to coronavirus, some students are not on campus, so even Extensive Reading had to be moved online; this project was organized by Eleanor Kane.
The other difficulty in Communication courses was to avoid giving students too much work. Since video classes are unstable for some students due to their internet situation, I moved some listening and vocabulary activities outside of class time (onto Moodle) so that students had more flexibility and control over their work, but due to that same internet instability, speaking and listening activities take much more time. This is my latest challenge to resolve: how to reduce student workload.
