Furthering Post-Pandemic CALL Professional Development in Iran
دکتر سوسن مرندی
The low quality of many online classes during the recent pandemic disillusioned numerous technology enthusiasts; it led them to realize that educational technology is not a panacea, and that there was more to digital courses than being connected to the Internet. The term Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) was coined during this period, in order to differentiate between such substandard classes and those with a sound pedagogical foundation. Nonetheless, most language teachers are still largely unaware of the differences, and even more disappointing, they do not even have regular, appropriate access to in-service or pre-service Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) teacher training. This is currently true in Iran, as well, disregarding the recent establishment of a master’s degree in CALL at Alzahra University in 2020. Therefore, Iranian language teachers need to learn how they can further their own CALL professional development self-reliantly, in order to keep abreast of recent fast-tracked technology and CALL developments, and learn when and how to apply them to their own classes. This talk will briefly cover some of the most noteworthy CALL teacher education topics, so that participants will learn which issues they need to focus on most, and where to look for further guidance.