Back to English classrooms: Teachers’ and students’ perceptions on reopened schools

Abstract

This study intends to explore the perception of secondary level students and teachers regarding their experiences of reopened schools. It also focuses on the challenges they faced while attending face to face classes. Besides, qualitative multiple case study approach has been adopted for this study where purposive sampling technique helped the researcher to select seven secondary level students and three teachers. The researcher has designed the conceptual framework of the study with the combination of Blended Learning Assessment Framework (2014) and Learning Affecting Framework (1991) theories. For completing the data collection procedure, the interviews of all participants were taken in the physical setting and qualitative data analysis of the transcripts revealed that both teachers and students preferred offline classes, and they had gone through some basic preparations for in-person classes. Some of the challenges the students had faced in these classes were lack of concentration, interaction and reluctance to write. In the case of teacher participants, it was found that teachers were anxious to take offline classes after long time. Moreover, they faced problems in controlling the classroom and redesigning the lesson plans for the reopened classes. the findings of the study will be beneficial for the teachers, students, authorities of schools, governmental officials to take action for upgrading the English education quality of an ESOL context such as Bangladesh after post COVID-19 era. In addition, the framework of the study can be used for reopened classroom situations in any other country of the world.