Post-Covid Ideology and Dimensions in Language Teaching

*Yadu Prasad Gyawali and Babita Parajuli*

### **Abstract**

The chapter entitled Post-Covid Ideology and Dimensions in Language Teaching aims to explore the possible educational intervention in post-covid classrooms. It focuses on the role of teachers, stakeholders, curriculum, and technologies in the field of language teaching in the new-normal classroom situation after the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapter reviews the cultural and linguistic ideology of community developed as a possible way out in the new learning situation in the context of Nepal. Additionally, it discusses the paradigm shift in teaching-learning ideologies from the theoretical to practical perspectives for language teaching.

**Keywords:** new-normal, post-method, transformation, pedagogy, ideology in emergencies, soft-skills

#### **1. Introduction**

Language teaching has been associated with the social function as the language teachers and learners interact with various social, cultural and cross-cultural ideologies. The social and cultural ideologies of any country can affect the language teaching and learning processes. These dimensions affecting language teaching can be the symbolic forms that circulate in the social environment. Van Dijk [1] states that ideology controls the thoughts of people and guides them by cognitive and social aspects based on norms, values, culture, identity and basic social features. As the sociocultural belief supports the formation of ideology, language teaching and learning in post-covid situations can be a part of gaining new ideology with the different cultural realities in the society. Therefore, this chapter deals with the ideologies of language teaching in post-covid situation including the role of the stakeholders, possible language instructional strategies and curriculum innovation in the classroom realities for language teaching.

#### **2. Context**

Teachers and students have not experienced such disruption in the instructional process with long duration of school closures in the history of academic field. According to the report of the United Nations, the global pandemic of Covid-19 has been affecting the world's education system and continuous learning process. More than 1.60 billion students from pre-primary to higher education in more than 200 countries had stuck at home for months due to the lockdown in the first phase of Covid 19. With the onset of the global pandemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19),

the educational sector has been facing several challenges. Students stuck at home, teaching-learning programs and examinations of primary, secondary, and tertiary levels have been postponed in many countries.

Many researchers in the field of sociolinguistics and anthropology discuss the role of language teaching in determining the cultural identity of the students. The study of Kennedy [2] indicates that language has a positive role to develop cultural identity establishing the social connection of people in the community. Likewise, Ennaji [3] explains that culture can shape the mental condition of people representing their behaviors and lifestyle based on local and national languages. Every language with a typical nature forms people's cultural distinctiveness indicating various socio-cultural realities, traditions, lifestyles, cultural values and belief systems of a society developing the socio-cultural system of a nation.

In the present context of Nepal, many students at all levels have been suffering from anxiety due to the Covid pandemic and their parents seem worried about the continuation of their children's study. Similarly, the responsible authorities and stakeholders in the academic field are exploring the possible alternatives for educational plans and interventions to address the learning situation in the pandemic. Similarly, we, as practitioners, experienced an interesting event of some students who are from remote areas have been involving in the different the communitybased volunteer practices for creating learning opportunities. One of the students doing a master's degree introduced life skills and conversation skills courses to the students of his community to make them responsible in learning and develop awareness to the misleading activities during pandemic.

Despite the physical, psychological, and emotional challenges, the teachers and have been engaging in creating opportunities during emergencies. These practices lead to improve this terrible situation beyond the classroom. We have traditional faith that learning is bound within the classroom, fixed curriculum, prescribed and referred textbooks, allocated schedule, particular teacher, and predefined learning goals. After reflecting about the COVID-19 pandemic, we conceptualized a framework of transforming learning strategies from face to face to online community or alternative modes which can be accessible to the students as per the geographical and economic access during the global pandemic of COVID-19. Similarly, we need to think about teaching-learning from the angle of learning to live and learning to be responsible. Cyberspace might be another key to unlock lockdown. Learners can explore the digital materials as per their learning requirements involving in the virtual classrooms with the help of digital tools and technological skills.

In a nutshell, the concerned authorities of education sectors need to develop the contextual learning modalities and skills which can lead to the shaping future of the children. The teaching-learning paradigm needs to be transformed to the learning-sharing paradigm because the episteme of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic suggests us transforming and adopting contextual learning opportunities. Therefore, the curriculum, content, context and learning space need to be considered innovatively in the post-COVID situation and the present context may unlock the paradigm of professional culture to identify homeschooling parameters associated with social and psychological maturity to the learners of COVID inflamed society of the nation.

Many researchers, linguists and SLA scholars have been developing a variety of student-centered methodologies and approaches for effective language teaching and learning process. The following section discusses the key concerns regarding the possible approaches that can be followed for post-covid language instruction.
