Natalia Fedorova, manager at the HSE Academic Writing Center, has over 15 years of experience in teaching English in a variety of contexts. She holds a degree in English Philology, Trinity CertTESOL (Trinity College London), CPE, and FTBE (Pearson). Her professional interests include EAP, ESP, teacher training, and project management in education.
Title: Lessons We Learnt from Online Transition
In the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, education is arguably one of the most affected spheres of human activity. It will hardly be an exaggeration to say that the pandemic has led to a major transformation in pedagogical practices and predominant ways of learning globally, and, although the pandemic is officially over, many changes seem to have become permanent. Despite the fact that sufficient research into the impact of the "Corona Related Teaching Situation" (CRTS) on teaching practices has been conducted, we have yet to grasp the implications of this transformation. Every educator and educational institution has developed their own methods of adapting to the new normal, and we believe that educators have plenty to share and discuss. In my presentation, I would like to describe the experience of the Academic Writing Center of HSE University in implementing online transition. The Center provides linguistic support and educational services to the researchers and faculty of the university in order to assist them in publishing research papers in high-ranking international journals. Our teaching context is characterized by learners' autonomy and proficiency as well as their high expectations. Thus, we believe that our primary goal is to ensure high teaching standards and facilitate the learning process in any circumstances. The presentation will focus on the steps we have taken to provide support to trainers and learners in adapting to the online transition, some of the limitations of the online format we have encountered, and the issues we have faced and tried to solve. I would like to share the practices we have developed and ultimately to invite colleagues from other institutions to participate in a discussion of what solutions in the sphere of online teaching their experience has prompted.
Summary:
The presentation focuses on practices adopted at the Academic Writing Center of HSE University to accommodate both writing instructors and learners in the transition from face-to-face to online teaching and learning. I will speak about the support the Center provides to trainers, problems we faced, and solutions we developed through experience.