Article Notice – Online Classroom Interaction Strategies: Voices of Teachers in Disadvantaged Areas

The second of two articles that scrolled across my electronic desk over the past few days.

Online Classroom Interaction Strategies: Voices of Teachers in Disadvantaged Areas

• December 2023

• DOI: 10.1007/978-981-99-7559-4_5

• In book: Critical Reflections on ICT and Education

• Thi Thuy Le
• Helena Sit
• Shen Chen
• Hauling Sun

Abstract – The adoption of technical innovation tools in the virtual classroom has prompted new teaching strategies and interactional patterns for class participation. During the pandemic, temporary shutdown of schools increased our awareness of the indispensable benefits of face-to-face interaction between students and teachers. Unequal access to technological applications in different countries and/or regions was revealed due to the transition to online teaching. Enhancing equal access and quality of education should start with improving the quality of teaching forces in response to digital innovations. The pandemic has prompted considerable research into online teaching; however, there is a paucity of research regarding the interactional aspects of online teaching. The issues of how teachers interacted with technology to facilitate their online interaction in pandemic-initiated online teaching have yet to be inadequately investigated in disadvantaged areas. For example, although recent Vietnamese scholars have drawn attention to interaction patterns during their online teaching, their studies were conducted primarily at the tertiary level and in urban areas; school teachers in marginalised areas have been neglected. This current study aims to address interactional aspects of online teaching in the Northern mountainous region of Vietnam to enhance the quality of teaching forces in disadvantaged areas. In-depth experiential and semi-structured interviews were used to explore the online interaction experience of twenty upper-secondary school teachers working in this region. Identifying teachers’ perceptions, challenges, and coping strategies paves the way for initiating help and support and enacting responsive and equitable teacher training and professional development policies in Vietnam’s disadvantaged educational contexts. It should provide wider implications to the online language teaching and learning practices in other countries and/or regions that share similar contextual similarities.