Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) of Iran’s EFL High School Curriculum During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Quantitative Study

Learning and teaching a second/foreign language is demanding and challenging, especially where it is done in an abnormal situation. The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 and the resulting lockdown took language learning and teaching to another level. Learners and teachers faced various problems and also experienced multiple benefits during the pandemic. This quantitative study aimed to investigate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of the online EFL curriculum in Iranian high schools in the context of COVID-19. A questionnaire was developed and analyzed through an exploratory factor analysis to understand the SWOT factors. The factors of SWOT were analyzed and the results revealed a 63.4% value for strengths, 70.3% for opportunities, 78.5% for weaknesses, and 75.5% for threats. The findings indicated that the weaknesses outweighed the strengths and the threats outweighed the opportunities. The conclusions drawn from these findings will have positive implications for high school EFL teachers, students, decision-makers, and policy-makers.