This document discusses the challenges of moving English language instruction from the classroom to home-based virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. It describes how the author redesigned lesson plans and materials to be effective in an online format. It also addresses issues like unequal student access to technology and proposes assessing student learning processes rather than just outcomes. The author found value in receiving feedback from peer coaches and in developing skills like classroom management in virtual settings. Overall, the experience strengthened the author's professional abilities and showed that remote English instruction can reach communities without classroom access.

1. From School to Home: English Learning Challenges in the Framework of
COVID-19 pandemic
By Melanie Vega Longas
From School to Home English Learning Challenges in the Framework of
COVID-19 pandemic by Melanie Vega Longas is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The beginning of professional life poses a series of challenges and learning
that if not addressed correctly, can negatively influence later professional
experiences for the new graduate. This fact is especially relevant in the case of a
pre-service teacher, since his or her experience during the internship will point the
way forward and the preferred teaching techniques in his or her teaching work.
However, the current health situation that we are going through has forced us to
rethink the way education is presented; therefore, during the present paper I will
reflect on my professional practice during the second semester of 2020, and I will go
deeper into the changes, challenges and strategies implemented to achieve
significant learning processes.
In the first place, one of the most relevant aspects and that most concerns
the practitioner has to do with the planning of classes and the design of material, so
that it is useful and meaningful in virtual environments. Harmer (2007) points out that
"a plan gives the lesson a framework, an overall shape" (p.157) in that sense, one
of the keys to developing my professional practice effectively was based on being
meticulous and detailed with the way I would execute my sessions to go, and in that
way I would be able to foresee problems and demonstrate a level of professionalism
and commitment to my students. Moreover, instead of implementing an activity that

2. I have executed before, I used to rethink it and state it in a way that students could
enjoy it through the ICTs.
On the other hand, the social and economic context of the schools which
we are teaching at, represent a huge challenge in terms of technological
infrastructure, since few students have access to the Internet, and even less a
computer at home. However, an important aspect to take into account in these
scenarios has to do with equality, since we must try that all our students have the
same access to technological resources and education opportunities. According to
Lynch and Baker (2005), “changing the curricula and assessment system” could
promote the reduction of inequality; for we can examine particular cases of our
students and judge them under different yet fair criteria. In my case, I used to assess
and contact students who could join our meet session through WhatsApp and
provide them with the material and needed explanations in a way that they could be
updated in relevant class topic.
Moreover, although I developed these educational processes with much
encouragement and desire to innovate, it was necessary to have the supervision
and advice of my peers. I consider that an essential part of the teaching exercise is
to be able to help our colleagues improve and provide strategies that can be useful
according to each classroom. Thus, some of the best practices to become a more
reflective teacher include observing colleagues and receiving feedback from them
(Emery, 2015:156). In my case, my peer-coaching group was integrated with three
of us, and each one developed the role of coach and assessed, this helped us a lot
since with acquired more expertise not only by receiving advice from our classes,
but we could also rise our critical awareness sense to support our peers in some
strategies we considered could be enhanced.
Moving forward to a very important topic, one of the issues in which most
pre-service teacher show interest has to do with whether or not their students will
achieve the learning objectives proposed for the class. This matter is controversial
because once again we must consider the complex nature of virtual education, and
therefore rethink our standards and objectives for students. Thus, one of the

3. strategies that I implemented had to do with not only rethinking the objectives to
know the linguistic achievements of the students, but also to include changes to the
evaluation, and I achieved that by focusing assessment on the process of learning
and not only in the learning outcomes (Cameron, 2001:216). This is vital because
not only was my choice focusing on processes, but it was also one of the
requirements from the school.
One last aspect that I would like to emphasize has to do with the
professional and academic experiences that this practice brought with it, and that is
that undoubtedly the learning acquired in this context becomes more valuable
because to reach them I had to face situations that I had never faced before and
rethink all the classic educational standards of teaching in a classroom. In this sense
I had to hold on to a number of innovative techniques that end up being useful for
21st century teachers, and as stated by Trilling and Fadel (2006), learning and
innovations skills are key for future teachers to succeed in providing pupils with
significant learning. I have no doubt that from this experience I have learned to work
better under pressure scenarios, have improved my classroom management
strategies in virtual learning environments, and without a doubt many engaging
techniques for students to enjoy the class.
Although it would be contradictory to say that this situation has also
brought good things, I have to express that for me it did in the sense that I was able
to strengthen a number of professional skills that I could not implement with great
professionalism before, and I also had the opportunity to understand that it is also
possible to work from home and reach many communities that sometimes do not
have the resources or possibilities to access the learning of English. This practice
was a process of contrast, and I will undoubtedly leave with the positive side of it.

4. REFERENCES
Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners (Cambridge
Language Teaching Library). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Emery, Helen and Rich Sarah. (2015). Teaching English to Young Learners.
TESOL Publication.
Harmer, Jeremy. (2007). How to Teach English (2nd ed.). Pearson
Education Limited.
Lynch, K., & Baker, J. (2005). Equality in education: An equality of condition
perspective
Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our
Times. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.e. Theory and research in
education, 3(2), 131-164