Abstract
In the context of the book that is collecting creative and altruistic responses of language educators and organisations to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, our chapter deals with the main difficulty of on-line teaching - creating an engaging and effective learning environement and structure. The chapter aims to provide a comparative perspective of the abrupt migration to online teaching prompted by the pandemic in two institutions: The University of Ottawa, Canada, and the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.
It discusses how the rapid transition from face-to-face to online teaching and learning modalities in the context of the pandemic provides an opportunity to reflect and rethink the teaching and learning paradigm. Based on the transactional theory of distance and theoretical model of 'presence' in e-learning, the authors show that distance, presence and proximity in online teaching are the key concepts for a succeful learning experience.
The chapter concludes with exemples of strategies for enhancing presence and proximity in online teaching based on the experince from COVID-19 years. The chapter provides a useful framework to guide teacher trainers and instructors in the design of online and hybrid programmes that are caring, engaging, supportive and conducive to a quality learning experience, based of the theory of transactional distance and model of presence in e-learning.