Evaluating University Instructors' attitude and challenges towards online English language teaching before and after corona crisis.

Employing a mixed-methods design, this study attempted to investigate Iranian EFL instructors' attitude toward e-learning before and after COVID-19, how they did their online EFL teaching, and what challenges they faced during COVID-19. Forty-one university ELT instructors from across the country participated in the quantitative phase of the study by filling out an online questionnaire about their attitude toward e-learning before and after the crisis began. For the qualitative phase of this study, 16 instructors who volunteered to participate in this research were asked to consider in writing their practices in conducting online EFL classes and the challenges they encountered since COVID-19 broke out. Five of them were also consented to participate in a semi-structured follow-up interview. Analysis of the quantitative data showed a significant increase in positive attitude toward e-learning from before to after the crisis. Analysis of the qualitative data also showed that the instructors conducted online teaching through a series of activities, ranging from checking student presence to evaluating student work synchronously or asynchronously, depending on university policies. Various applications and platforms were used, ranging from learning management systems (LMS) to additional resources. However, many problems arose with the students and the instructors. It can be concluded that online teaching did not go well because it was not prepared and preplanned. Implications for better online learning are also discussed.