Impact of Covid-19 on English Language Teaching in Yemen: Challenges and Opportunities

This study examined the effect of COVID-19 on English language teaching as well as the steps undertaken by the Ministry of Higher Education in Yemen to cope with the challenges imposed by the spread of the pandemic throughout the country. To this end, a mixed-method design in which quantitative and qualitative approaches were used for collecting and analyzing the data of the study; a questionnaire was developed and sent online to the participants for the purpose of data collection. The sample of the study consisted of 120 students from selected Yemeni universities. The obtained data were analyzed via SPSS software in which the frequencies and percentages of the obtained responses were calculated. The analysis of the data revealed that English language teaching underwent an abrupt change because of the unexpected circumstances that were caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and several changes were also made to the curriculum, students’ performance evaluation, and pedagogy. Besides, the findings showed that Yemeni students faced several challenges including poor Wi-Fi connection, lack of access to some learning websites, and the absence of some equipment necessary for online learning. Regardless of these challenges, most of the participants reported that they can manage to do their final evaluation online which indicates that if the online teaching methods are implemented properly, the online learning of the English Language during the pandemic period will be successful in the Yemeni universities. The present study provides recommendations which can be useful for EFL learners and teachers, decisionmakers, teaching English and perhaps the entire teaching process in Yemen.