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Research showed that before the pandemic times teachers were somehow familiarised
with some applications like Kahoot / Youtube / Moodle / Skype / and have heard of it,
but they didn’t actually use it during their face to face courses. Most teachers played
safe with their courses and they focused on the pedagogical skills that were more re-
lated to using teaching methods, games and teaching resources (course books, printa-
bles, working sheets) that were mainly used in face to face teaching.
That is why, when they had to start online classes most teachers weren’t satisfied with
the learning resources available to students and they felt the need to start using new
digital resources in order to adapt the content to online teaching and to increase stu-
dent’s motivation and engagement..
The only opportunities teachers had to adapt to the new online form of teaching were
the induction training programmes organised by their working institution which were
perceived at that time as very comprising as they contained a lot of new information
for them and they felt overwhelmed. All of them emphasised that they had to spend
an incredible amount of time learning how to use new digital tools, how to integrate
them in their distance teaching and then, how to create themselves digital content to
deliver their courses.
3.3.2 MUTUAL SUPPORT THROUGH PEER LEARNING
Therefore, the main challenge was to learn by themselves the functionalities of the
new tools they were presented, and this part involved the process of developing new
digital technology skills, but also precision and organisation in offering technical ex-
planations to students. Concerning the methods they used to learn these skills, be-
sides the teacher training they attended, they all did it in a similar way by searching
video tutorials and teachers forums. What is remarkable in our findings is that all
teachers agreed that the best help they got was to talk and to get help from some of
their fellow teachers which boosted their confidence and gave them a stronger sense
of belonging. All interviewed teachers manifested a good and very good attitude to-
wards new technologies and they showed a strong positive attitude and desire in using
and developing digital skills.
DIGITAL TOOLS AND FLIPPED LEARNING IN ONGOING PROGRESS
The research shows that all the interviewed teachers weren’t familiarised with some
pedagogical-didactic methodologies like inverted classroom also known as Flipped
learning or blended learning or if they heard the concept, they didn’t use it in their
face to face or, later, in their online classes. This shows that teachers lacked the abili-
ties to motivate and engage students in autonomous learning and did not have the
necessary means to integrate this methodology when they were faced with online
teaching.
We must mention that in adult learning, most participants in language classes for ex-
ample come to courses because they can’t learn on their own or they lack the motiva-
tion to learn a language autonomously, therefore it is understandable that before the