Online Communication Challenges: Case of First year EFL students and their teachers at the university of Tlemcen

Abstract

This study strives to explore the challenges and issues encountered by EFL students and their teachers while communicating online in a Teams meeting within the process of distance education. The researcher adopted an exploratory method of research with a case study of 1 st year EFL students and their teachers at the department of English, Tlemcen university. The results obtained from this inquiry prove that EFL students and teachers do face some challenges and barriers of different categories, namely: technical, physical, temporal, social, and, psychological. This paper observes the effect of those barriers on education as a whole and seeks feasible solutions to them , and deduces that an actual practical solution requires a collaboration from the two parties.