LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCES ABOUT THE TRANSITION FROM FACE-TO-FACE INSTRUCTION TO EMERGENCY REMOTE TEACHING FROM A NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE

This paper reports a narrative research study on language teaching in higher education. The study aimed to describe the experiences lived by nine language teachers during the transition process from face-to-face to emergency remote teaching and conducted within a qualitative research approach using narrative methodology as a technique of inquiry. The data were collected through stories and a focus group. Based on the data analysis, three main categories were identified: affective component, pedagogical component and technological component. The results showed that at the beginning, the transition was stressful and upsetting, however as time went by, teachers started to feel more confident and calmer about the way they addressed their classes because they adapted to the new teaching reality.


FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS' EXPERIENCES ABOUT THE TRANSITION FROM FACE-TO-FACE INSTRUCTION TO EMERGENCY REMOTE TEACHING FROM A NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Experiencias de profesores de lenguas extranjeras sobre la transición de la enseñanza presencial a la enseñanza remota de emergencia desde una perspectiva narrativa The results showed that at the beginning, the transition was stressful and upsetting, however as time went by, teachers started to feel more confident and calmer about the way they addressed their classes because they adapted to the new teaching reality.

KEYWORDS: emergency remote teaching,
face-to-face instruction, teachers, experiences, narrative RESUMEN Este artículo presenta un estudio sobre la enseñanza de idiomas en educación superior.

INTRODUCTION
The Covid pandemic has brought about changes that until recently were unimaginable or not perceived as possible in the near future. In the field of education, drastic changes such as the unexpected and immediate transition from faceto-face instruction to remote teaching, due to the pandemic, are experiences that arrived suddenly without the vast majority of us being prepared.  Karaeng and Simanjuntak (2021) in the Universitas Advent Indonesia (UNAI). This   (Howell, 2015). Amid the current crisis due to COVID-19, educational institutions have had to make decisions on how to keep teaching without endangering faculty and students.
The best option seems to be online teaching.
However, as Hodges et al. (2020) point out, what teachers are doing to face the crisis cannot be called online teaching per se.

EMERGENCY REMOTE TEACHING (ERT)
Unlike online teaching, ERT is not as well planned.
On the contrary, emergency remote teaching is defined as an interim change in the delivery of instruction due to crisis circumstances (Hodges et al, 2020). This change has to do with the use of available remote solutions for instruction which would normally be delivered either face-to-face or with blended courses once the crisis is over.
The objective of ERT is to provide temporary access to instruction and instructional supports in a quick and easy way during the time of the emergency. Bearing this in mind, teachers facing this new way of interacting with students have to live a process of many changes in a short period of time. However, it is worth to highlight that although ERT cannot be a synonym of online teaching, it is true that it seems not to move away from the foundations of online education such as: authentic social interaction, ability to cognitively delve into contents and stimulation and guide from the teacher (Virgili, 2021).

TEACHING LANGUAGES ONLINE
Online language teaching consists in language instruction that can be partly or fully online.
About online language teaching, Meskill and Anthony (2015) stated three premises about the subject matter: language learning mainly comprises social/instructional processes; online environments can be used well socially and instructionally, and teaching well online needs skilled instruction. According to Rosenthal (2000), · 1 9 4 · the opportunity to reshape the content and the process of language education. Rosenthal (2000), also stated that new technologies give the chance of integrating language, content and culture, as well as the encouragement for collaborative and autonomous learning. As teaching online has become a challenge for many of us, it is important to consider some aspects that are a requirement for this kind of teaching, since teaching languages online differs from teaching face-to-face or even teaching other areas. Hampel and Stickler's (2005), introduced a pyramid of the necessary skills to teach English online and it is presented from the basic level skills to the higher-level skills.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS
This study was conducted in a Language  (Potts, 2004). As cited by Blanco · 1 9 5 · through different approaches. In the present study, a specific type of story was used, this is the topical story. Riessman (1993) defines topical stories as restricted stories about one specific moment in time with a "plot, characters and setting" but that do not include the entire person's life.
To broaden and reinforce the information gathered from the storytelling, four participants were selected at random to participate in a focus group. Focus groups aid the purpose of collecting qualitative data and can be used as a source of follow-up date to reinforce the first method Morgan (1997). The focus group was carried out through a meeting via Zoom where 7 questions were asked. The meeting was recorded and then the information provided by teachers was transcribed. The information from this data collection is qualitative, which allows an in-depth analysis of the gathered information. (2017) (2007) who claims the first of this is subject reality that involves "a thematic analysis where the main analytical step is the coding of narratives according to emerging themes, patterns and categories". One of the most common approaches to analyze narratives is the narrative thematic analysis, which focuses on the content within the text. It is a flexible method that lays emphasis on the identification, study and record of patterns present in data and in this way gives a full, detailed and complex account of data (Gaskell, 2000).

AFFECTIVE COMPONENT:
This component refers to the feelings experienced by teachers during the transition process from face-to-face teaching to emergency remote teaching. The researchers found two emerging themes: Negative and positive feelings. "What I can't deny is feeling afraid of thinking that something could go wrong.
Everything was new at that moment."

FINDINGS FROM THE FOCUS GROUP.
In the focus group, the questions were based on the three components that came up after the analysis of the topical stories.

AFFECTIVE COMPONENT
Teachers expressed that they experienced the

PEDAGOGICAL COMPONENT
Teachers said that most of the preparation came from training offered by the university, self-training using tutorials on different websites and also from collaborative training. Teachers emphasized the need for motivating students and making classes more active and entertaining for students. They also said they became facilitators of learning and interaction by assigning collaborative work to students. Besides, they said that it was necessary to be more understanding, tolerant and flexible with students because of the frequent technical problems experienced with this type of instruction. Teachers also mentioned that students need more autonomy and that the more autonomous they become the better they respond. As for materials, they stated that they had to find different alternatives to facilitate and motivate learning and emphasized on the advantage of all students having access to the tools.

TECHNOLOGICAL COMPONENT
All teachers said they have used the Google suite as this is the one provided by the university. The tools they used with more frequency were Meet,  (2020) where they found that language teachers suffered from substantial levels of stress, anxiety, anger,  When comparing the data obtained from the two instruments, the information gathered from the focus group reinforced the aspects found in the topical stories in relation to the affective, pedagogical, and technological component.
Something that emerged from the focus group and was not mentioned in the topical stories was that teachers found on the one hand that students needed to be more motivated and on the other hand that teachers needed to be more flexible with students.
The goal of this study was to become aware of the experience's language teachers had in the transition from face-to-face teaching to emergency remote teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As shown in the findings it can be said that teachers' experiences were both positive and negative during this transition process. However, these experiences tended to be more positive than negative with time and practice since in both instruments teachers expressed that nowadays they feel they have adapted to the change and feel more confident working in this way. The only aspect that continues to be a problem is the one related to the technical difficulties but this is something that cannot be controlled by teachers. Our study corroborates with others that this transition was something that took us all by surprise and showed that teachers had different experiences in this adaptation process that became meaningful for them at a personal and professional level. To conclude, the findings help us to realize that teachers are able to adapt to new teaching circumstances and that above all this has become a learning experience for all.