 My name is Anna Maroutian and I'm currently the center manager at Francis King School of English Dublin. And I've been here for about two years now. One of those years was a pandemic year, so I think that counts for four. And before that, I used to be the DOS, the academic side of things, different side of things in Grafton College. So, Anna, I want to start by asking you what challenges the pandemic has posed in your classroom, because I think we're going to talk about the teaching experience. Yes. Well, to be honest with you, I've always been a teacher, like even with the academic work and admin work that I've always been involved in, well, I have been in the past seven years. I've always been in the classroom, like I've always had. I've done my Delta in the process of the whole situation, so it was a very hands-on experience for me in the classroom itself. And when the pandemic hit, basically on the 13th of March, we were all teaching, we were all involved in teaching, especially since the nature of the kind of school we have is majority concentrated on the summer period. So our students, our students are, you know, young learners as well as children, as well as family, so it's a bit of a mix. And as a matter of fact, just before the 13th of March, the week before that, we had a large, gorgeous group of German teachers who were, ironically, with us for a course in IT, so technology in the classroom, and they were basically just getting their CPT done, trying to figure out how to apply technology in general in their teaching environment, which I thought was quite funny considering that, you know, seeing that a week from then we were all thrown basically into exactly that. And if I were to assess what happened during that week, during the course, which I was co-teaching with two of my colleagues, we realized that it wasn't as much the technology itself that was an unknown, it was just not quite clear as to how to apply this technology in the actual teaching process. So say I knew how to share a Google Doc and I knew how to, I don't know, use Nearpod for an activity, but it was a difficulty on its own, basically, trying to use that in a constructive way online. So if you look at the actual challenge when this happened and when the live classroom kind of ceased to exist and we went into this virtual world, I had luckily had some training with Edmodo at that stage, and I was able to kind of help our academic management team to put everything basically into the VLE virtual learning environment and include everyone, and kind of share the information with the teachers, with the students as to how to log on to it, you know, how to do the basics of creating, as you will, a classroom in its own right, a school in its own right. So teachers themselves had obviously the issues that all teachers have and humans have with technology at first, so we had to adapt to all that. So the main challenge was to create an environment that would be constructive, it would be helpful, and it would actually allow our students to continue to be in touch with us because as you know yourself, teachers are the first point of contact for the students and we're talking about people who are far away from home, people who are dealing with their own daily lives, work problems, and obviously pandemic didn't help with that. So it was just the case of creating a safe environment for everyone to feel like, okay, we're in this together, sort of speak, and we are going to, you know, get through the whatever hurdles come our way and whatever does happen, we have each other support, and which is exactly what happened support was the key thing in the whole process, in my opinion. So what was the feedback because I think we've kind of covered the response to the challenge, the challenges and how did it kind of influence the way that you developed response. Well, initial feedback from the students themselves was quite predictable, you know, it was in some ways predictable in other ways not so predictable. Well, there were the issues of not having a device. Okay, it went down to the basics of things. So some people had tablets and they had a phone perhaps but others didn't, they just have their mobile phone. So that is not the best device to be to use for this type of thing because of the length of time that you need to spend in front of the screen, you know, having three hour four hour even classes per day. You know, it just wasn't practical so a lot of students had to adapt to this process and have to throw devices or you know there were some who rented them I know some teachers obviously were given devices by us in the beginning of the whole situation just to assist people with, you know, getting set up and the current kind of brought us to, you know, microphones and how do I do this and video, some didn't have their cams working so technical issues first. And then, after that, the feedback was mostly on negative at first let's say it wasn't it wasn't any change I find is always difficult. Doesn't matter if it is, you know, for the teacher or the student you know it's not a, it's not a clear cut easy process and we were all dealing with, you know, mental and emotional parts as well of the whole situation. So the initial feedback was that like students felt like you know they they were not getting what they had signed up for but then again nobody was. And it took a little bit of time for for them to adapt and to see the benefits of, you know, having this technology and having these continuous support because even down just seeing the face just seeing your teacher's face and seeing someone familiar and your classmates who you've spent you know months at a time with it all. It all started showing its benefits and just having them, you know, be a bit more open minded towards, you know, the process and giving it a try essentially was key, I find, because you know it took time for them to be a learner to be trained so learners had to be trained to use all things that we were using as teachers. Some learners were proficient enough to help the teachers themselves, and then it was really a give and take. It really was it if anything built the community in our case, even further like it brought us even closer because we found each other as the only sometimes human point of contact you know when you are in a house with yes you have, you know flatmates and whatnot you are you don't spend as much time with them as you do at school at work. So it was, it was, I think helpful at the end and the feedback change drastically within a very short period of time. You, we did, we almost run feedback sessions for nightly I would say, at least, at least that, just to also on the, on the, you know, mental health level and just support to students outside of the whole you know how is the learning going but how are you doing and do you need any help or, you know, people would get a flu and think it was something else and they didn't need, you know, classmates to say you know don't worry about it everything's going to be fine, or, you know, pass on their, their, their knowledge and say you know you should go there and you should do this. I think that helped a lot and in the process language acquisition as well, you know, benefited from it as a result, you know, at the community kind of continue to exist outside the actual physical world as well as you know, not not in a traditional style. And so, apart from kind of all the technical fixes and that kind of thing that you had to become an expert in. Yeah, what else would you say you've learned along the way either organizationally or personally. Well, efficiency, time, time benefits are, are quite extensive really. And as, as it were, I mean, you know the it world in the past scared people more. And, you know, considering you know having a meeting online or even having an interview or recording online or even just recording your own voice didn't come across as something that people did, you know naturally or was that even an option. And when it did become an option. I mean, if you look at staff meetings just keeping in contact and being able to, you know, call on each other's expertise, quite swiftly without any need to do anything other than press a button or invite into a zoom room or or that sort of thing so time efficiency wise, it actually helped a lot and things like what we learned was students didn't use their L2. There are one in the classroom on zoom I am still trying to understand why that is the case because the group of people is exactly the same, and yet we wouldn't have anyone using their own language they'd be all focusing on English and communicated in English. Perhaps it's the nature of like all eyes and on you sort of, you know, approach, perhaps that's what does that I am not quite sure. But we found that it was beneficial for them because they they used, you know, L1 everywhere, all the time, you know, in the real world and here they were on zoom and English seemed to be the only way to go so that was great. Otherwise, all sorts of paperwork, really, I mean, we used to, you know, fight for the photocopier and then we realized that it can actually be done without using any paper, it really is perfectly okay and there is no need for paper to be everywhere which was a big issue and in schools will have this kind of have heard and have been hearing about, you know, paperless environments where, you know, there's no waste and and and all that, and that kind of happened and nobody I don't think is going back to the photocopier anytime soon so there were definitely, you know, lots of organizational benefits as well. I mean, I don't see how this will not affect future of BLT. I mean, there is no way that people will have an induction in person when everything can be done, you know, online perfectly in the comfort when you're on home via video or audio or both or or recordings or the opportunities and possibilities are endless. So that side of things plus the comfort of not having to, you know, move and commute and all that as well helped I think a lot of people became more efficient they had more time to do homework, for example, because they had the possibility to kind of save time and do that side of things. Yeah, that's, that's what comes to mind. So, kind of around the topic of the future. And you, you already mentioned there, the things that you think will stay with us. What do you looking forward what do you think will will come back and do you have a, do you see have a positive view of it when you look forward into the future. I do, I don't think we have any option but to have a positive view I think that's the only way forward. It is the case of, I think, blending the both worlds because Ireland in itself and Irish culture and you know, that's never going to be substituted I don't think that there will ever be a time when you know someone will rather watch a video of a place or a people or a culture, rather than experience it live, you know, it is a completely different experience altogether and that has to be said, you know, I'm not under any illusion that this is going to disappear and we're just going to be an online entity No, definitely not. But I think definitely the blended proposed like it has to be blended because there are so many, you know, objectively speaking, benefits to being online as well as being in real life so the future, in my opinion will be experience the actual kind of live learning cultural shock effects and all the all the fun things that, you know, come with tasting a pint of Guinness or, you know, visiting the cliffs or whatever it is that is always going to be the bigger part of our community and what we have to offer to the English language learner and, you know, any learner at that point. But there are definitely incredible advantages to to having something like this set up where you know a zoom class can can help you prepare for what you're going to experience. Once you do arrive in Ireland. It can help you keep in touch or choose to continue to be part of the classroom in a different way. If you want once you're back in your country. Once you have made friends and perhaps that will lead to more development. I just don't think that I don't think we realize what the possibilities are until like we get to that point and we do get creative with it. And we will most certainly come up with the most beautiful ways of integrating the two worlds really in such a way that you know it's seamless and it's helpful. And the experience will be enhanced. I believe you know because we are we are becoming a very, you know, techie generation, well ours and the ones that come after us so they we have the phone and the computer and the tablet and the watch and the whole thing constantly connected to the world so I don't see why that can't be used to, you know, us learning and experience and experience of countries such as Ireland and what it has to offer and things are, you know, endless, there's so many.