Is Flow Possible in the Emergency Remote Teaching Foreign Language Classroom?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Based on rising interest in emotional factors in language teaching, the article compares the emotional factor termed 'flow' in In-person and ERT contexts, specifically time in flow. The article is generally well-written and has produced clear results showing the advantages of  In-person to ERT teaching in terms of time in flow. However, I suggest the following: 1) the aim should be stated, 2) the precise research gap and the reason for its significance should be clearly stated at the end of the literature review, 3) the literature review should be redrafted so that the argument leading up to the gap is clearer and 4) the Discussion and Conclusion should establish explicit, explanatory links to the emotions outlined in the  literature review (enjoyment, anxiety, boredom).

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Based on rising interest in emotional factors in language teaching, the article compares the emotional factor termed 'flow' in In-person and ERT contexts, specifically time in flow. The article is generally well-written and has produced clear results showing the advantages of  In-person to ERT teaching in terms of time in flow. However, I suggest the following: 1) the aim should be stated, 2) the precise research gap and the reason for its significance should be clearly stated at the end of the literature review, 3) the literature review should be redrafted so that the argument leading up to the gap is clearer and 4) the Discussion and Conclusion should establish explicit, explanatory links to the emotions outlined in the  literature review (enjoyment, anxiety, boredom)

• Aim and gap have been stated at the end of the lit review. Introductory paragraph has been introduced at the start of the Lit review to explain the structure. Better connections have been made between paragraphs in the Lit review.
• Link to emotions is established in the first part of the discussion, with references to the literature. We have added a sentence about emotions in the conclusion.

Reviewer 2 Report

Remote language instruction is a phenomenon that, for good and bad, is here to stay, and therefore merits thorough investigation. However, while this has been an interesting text to read, I see a number of problems with the current study. These relate to the lack of context, the validity and the generalizability of the findings. Furthermore, the study does not appear to be a good fit with the intentions of the current issue.

To start off, reading the introduction, I fail to understand the rationale for conducting this study (or rather, to write an article on this segment of the collected data). The introduction describes a research gap, but why does this need to be filled? This needs to be elaborated. Furthermore, the introduction does not set the scene for the study. Where are we? In what part of the world and with what students? The ”rushed, last-minute switch to Emergency Remote Teaching” – yes, in many contexts this was the case. But all parts of education, everywhere, did not move on-line. As this quantitative study seeks generalizable findings, such information may be thought unnecessary. I do not agree, and I will elaborate on this below.

Lots of studies are listed in the literature review, rather than synthesized, which would help offer a clearer picture of our current knowledge in the field. Sometimes it is clear where a specific study was conducted and with what participants, other times such information is missing. A high degree of self-referencing, as Author1 is represented in no less than a third of all references, and have co-written almost half of the studies referenced.

I find the lack of contextual information quite problematic. The purpose of statistical inferences in quantitative studies is to arrive at generalizable findings. And while psychological states such as flow may be generic to the human race in many ways, there are so many contextual aspects missing in the study, that make generalization problematic, to say the least.

Who are these students? Do they study English as a course requirement or by choice? How were they asked to self-assess their proficiency? Did they experience increased feelings of stress resulting from the pandemic, and being forced to isolate? In these unusual circumstances, restrictions of many kinds, due to the pandemic, may have impaired students’ motivation, focus and sense of flow, I imagine, although this cannot be blamed on remote teaching as such.

According to 2.1, flow is impacted by aspects such as challenge-skill balance, clear goals and feedback, arguably controlled by the teacher. So, for these students, what did their remote classes involve? Were there lectures? How many participants were there in the seminars? Were there breakout-room activities? Were students allowed to switch off their camera? What kinds of activities were they involved in? Did students and teachers know each other from before ERT was implemented? Did learners work individually to a higher degree in remote teaching? This alone, could explain the decrease of flow, considering the finding in 2.1 that group activities promote flow (Walker, 2010). The number of participants was not very big and all these factors are bound to make a large impact. Without this background, I do not know what to make of the findings.

Author Response

Remote language instruction is a phenomenon that, for good and bad, is here to stay, and therefore merits thorough investigation. However, while this has been an interesting text to read, I see a number of problems with the current study. These relate to the lack of context, the validity and the generalizability of the findings. Furthermore, the study does not appear to be a good fit with the intentions of the current issue.

• We disagree: the special issue is on the interface of Second Language Acquisition and Language Education, and that’s exactly what where we are situated. We do a SLA investigation on flow, and it has clear implications for FL teaching in In-person and online environments

To start off, reading the introduction, I fail to understand the rationale for conducting this study (or rather, to write an article on this segment of the collected data). The introduction describes a research gap, but why does this need to be filled? This needs to be elaborated. Furthermore, the introduction does not set the scene for the study. Where are we? In what part of the world and with what students? The ”rushed, last-minute switch to Emergency Remote Teaching” – yes, in many contexts this was the case. But all parts of education, everywhere, did not move on-line. As this quantitative study seeks generalizable findings, such information may be thought unnecessary. I do not agree, and I will elaborate on this below.

• Aim and gap have been stated more explicitly at the end of the lit review. Introductory paragraph at the start of the Lit review explains the structure. The methodology section explains clearly that the participants are from the Arab world. We have added a sentence that this is a population underrepresented in emotion research so far. As the results show, they experience issues with ERT that learners in richer countries don’t even think about, such as power cuts and patchy internet access.

Lots of studies are listed in the literature review, rather than synthesized, which would help offer a clearer picture of our current knowledge in the field. Sometimes it is clear where a specific study was conducted and with what participants, other times such information is missing.

• Missing information has been added. The relevant elements were reported.

A high degree of self-referencing, as Author1 is represented in no less than a third of all references, and have co-written almost half of the studies referenced.

• Author1 happens to be a pioneer in this line of research… and the current study builds upon previous research using the same concepts and instruments, branching out in a new direction

I find the lack of contextual information quite problematic. The purpose of statistical inferences in quantitative studies is to arrive at generalizable findings. And while psychological states such as flow may be generic to the human race in many ways, there are so many contextual aspects missing in the study, that make generalization problematic, to say the least. Who are these students? Do they study English as a course requirement or by choice? How were they asked to self-assess their proficiency? Did they experience increased feelings of stress resulting from the pandemic, and being forced to isolate? In these unusual circumstances, restrictions of many kinds, due to the pandemic, may have impaired students’ motivation, focus and sense of flow, I imagine, although this cannot be blamed on remote teaching as such.

• The contextual information provided was sufficient for this study and to answer the research questions (as reflected in the title). Any broad generalisation is difficult, as the patterns only really apply to the sample. We do show that the findings are in line with studies carried out in different parts of the world: So the research design is solid enough. The reviewer is entirely right that a wide range of more granular contextual factors could have an effect on flow, including – in In-person classes- the temperature in the classroom and the smile (or absence of smile) on the face of the teacher. We included this in the suggestions for further research. We added a sentence acknowledging that the stress linked to the pandemic, the isolation and potentially the grief for having lost loved ones may have weighed on their emotions and prevented them from reaching a state of flow as easily as before.

According to 2.1, flow is impacted by aspects such as challenge-skill balance, clear goals and feedback, arguably controlled by the teacher. So, for these students, what did their remote classes involve? Were there lectures? How many participants were there in the seminars? Were there breakout-room activities? Were students allowed to switch off their camera? What kinds of activities were they involved in? Did students and teachers know each other from before ERT was implemented? Did learners work individually to a higher degree in remote teaching? This alone, could explain the decrease of flow, considering the finding in 2.1 that group activities promote flow (Walker, 2010). The number of participants was not very big and all these factors are bound to make a large impact. Without this background, I do not know what to make of the findings.

• Given that we used snowball sampling, it was impossible to obtain that amount of information through the questionnaire (participants already spent an average of 30 minutes completing the survey). Inevitably this type of research cannot go into much detail. That’s why the title is “Is flow possible in the ERT?”  The answer is “yes”, and we’ve provided a first tentative answer on the reasons why.  A much more granular approach is needed to shed light on the complex, dynamic network of factors that could exert an influence on flow in a specific class. To answer the questions raised by the reviewer, a completely different research design would be needed, with active observation of just a few intact classes. That would be fine, but it was not our intention to do this. We did include some of these questions in the section “suggestions for further research”. So, thank you for raising this.

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors develop an interesting on flow in classroom and ERT.

All cases considered refer to EFL, perhaps the author should reflect it in the title and call it 

Is Flow Possible in EFL Emergency Remote Teaching?

Paper is well written with results, discussion and conclussions properly addressed.

Some suggestions:

All acronyms should be introduced the fist time that they appear as done with ERT in the first page or FLE but not with FLCA or SLA.

The sentence "no man (or woman) is an island" might be changed into "no human being is an island".

It is a pity taht the authors have not considered any case where blended technologies were used to compare the flow in that case. Indeed it seems that students following those methologies had a smoother trantition to ERT as noted by Sánchez-Ruiz, L.M.; Moll-López, S.; Moraño-Fernández, J.A.; Llobregat-Gómez, N. B-Learning and Technology: Enablers for University Education Resilience. An Experience Case under COVID-19 in Spain. Sustainability 2021, 13, 3532. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063532

Author Response

R3 The authors develop an interesting on flow in classroom and ERT.

All cases considered refer to EFL, perhaps the author should reflect it in the title and call it 

Is Flow Possible in EFL Emergency Remote Teaching?

• Good suggestion

Paper is well written with results, discussion and conclussions properly addressed.

Some suggestions:

All acronyms should be introduced the fist time that they appear as done with ERT in the first page or FLE but not with FLCA or SLA.

• Done

The sentence "no man (or woman) is an island" might be changed into "no human being is an island".

• Excellent suggestion

It is a pity taht the authors have not considered any case where blended technologies were used to compare the flow in that case. Indeed it seems that students following those methologies had a smoother trantition to ERT as noted by Sánchez-Ruiz, L.M.; Moll-López, S.; Moraño-Fernández, J.A.; Llobregat-Gómez, N. B-Learning and Technology: Enablers for University Education Resilience. An Experience Case under COVID-19 in Spain. Sustainability 2021, 13, 3532. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063532

• Thank you, we included the reference. We did not inquire about blended technologies ourselves, unfortunately.