Theme: “PEDAGOGICAL SHIFTS in TIMES of TURMOIL – FORCED DISTANCE EDUCATION IN ELT”

About the conference: The conference was held online on February 25, 26 & 27, 2021, organized by TESOL Turkey for academics, teachers, researchers, experts, and practitioners to share their ideas in the Covid-19 period.

Attending this online event made me realize that while we, educators, have been going through a difficult process; we have gained incredible insights from the effects of the forced pedagogical changes. It was nice to see that so many ELT professionals came together on the virtual platform to spread the information and experiences gained in this disruptive period.

About my presentation: The title of my presentation was “The Magic of Remote Observations in New Normal”. In this session I aimed to share the details of how online observation process was planned and implemented in distance education period with the data gathered from six observees who had gone through this process. The main purpose of my study was to identify how teachers felt about recording lesson videos for observation purposes in distance education and to reveal whether they see this observation practice as an opportunity for their own professional development in the future.

Presenting online in an international conference was an exciting and enjoyable experience for me as I didn’t experience giving a session from the comfort of my home before. I actually loved the online format because I was able to interact with more educators this way as there were no limiting boundaries like the number of chairs or the size of the room in the session. Even though I strongly believe in the value of face to face events, I definitely think that online conferences should continue to be held even after Covid-19.