Teaching in Clouds: Using the G Suite for Education for the Delivery of English for Special Purposes Courses

Recently, the educational environment has undergone major changes related to digitalization. Especially pandemic COVID-19 has a massive impact on global human life. The e-education system at universities creates new opportunities and new problems: an increasing amount of time for independent work of undergraduates and the active introduction of Internet based technologies, accompanied by their constant updating and improvement.

Language teaching instruction has evolved substantially over the past two decades. The changes lie within the evident increase of using new technologies in formal educational settings. Universities, schools, and language institutions across the globe are encouraging educators to use technology tools which will assist in teaching foreign languages effectively. Nonetheless, sufficient Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) training is lacking in teacher preparation programmes, even though there is a growing universal interest in technology-proficient language teachers among institutions [3, p.390]. Nichols and Hauck [6, p.192] have identified the insufficiency Hubbard has observed, and refer to it as organisational, theoretical, strategic, and pedagogical training challenges. Teachers are lacking support and training to positively integrate technology into the language classroom. Usun [7, p.332] has found that, although many countries in Europe have official recommendations of technology-related skills for future and practising teachers, the training programmes offered are often general and their organisation and content are decided by individual teacher training institutions.

In-training teachers have the need to clearly learn about the use of technology in the digital age. When applied and integrated appropriately, CALL technologies can support experiential learning and practice in a variety of ways by offering effective feedback to students, enabling collaborative learning, enhancing student achievement, encouraging the use of authentic materials, prompting interaction, and motivating language learners [5].

However, in addition to recognising the presence of obsolescent technology in CALL education programmes, Kessler [4, p.100] highlights that much of what teachers know about technology for language teaching results from informal or ad hoc experience through conference workshops, in-service training, personal reading, and other forms of self-edification. Moreover, in his study, he found that teachers perceive that formal instruction does not serve pedagogical needs, specifically when they need to create their own CALL-based materials. The author emphasises that this is due to the lack of satisfaction with the CALL preparation they received. He also suggests that “formal language teacher preparation programmes have largely neglected to equip their graduates with the related knowledge and skills they need to enter today’s technologically advanced language classroom”.

Being one of the most important and influential advancements in information technology since the emergence of the Internet, cloud computing has invaded the area of English Language Teaching among other fields, due to its flexibility, availability, practicality and cost effectiveness. In 2006 Google developed its Apps for Education, currently referred to as “G Suite for Education”, that provide teachers and students with access to different tools, such as Classroom, Mail, Drive, Calendar, Docs, etc., each serving different educational purposes. In 2020 more and more educational establishments all over the globe started using G Suite discovering numerous benefits under the pressure of Covid 19 lockdowns. To become eligible for using the suite, educational organisations should set up a Google institutional account first, which will have administrative responsibilities, e.g. creation of usernames and passwords for all users (teaching staff, administrative staff and students).

The article is devoted to the experience of implementation of G Suite for Education platform into everyday educational process under the lockdown conditions.

In autumn 2020 the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture started delivering all its classes on this platform due to the introduction of distance learning mode all over Ukraine due to the pandemic. After the spring term when educators mostly used different conferencing opportunities such as Zoom, the introduction of the common academic tool was certainly beneficial.

In order to gain access to the applications offered by Google, the Technical Department of the Academy created a Google institutional account through which credentials were created for the course instructors and their students. Google accounts were created, which served as platforms on which material, assignments, and announcements were uploaded. Moreover, students had the opportunity to take part in online discussions, which were enacted through the “Question” feature on the platform. Google Classroom was also used for the submission of assignments, marking and provision of feedback. The Google Classrooms created were connected to Google Drive folders that were automatically created, in which everything was stored. Apart from storage purposes, Google Drive was also used for the creation of Google Docs and Google Slides which the students shared and worked on collaboratively. The tasks in which students were engaged mainly involved collaboration, problem solving, debating controversial issues, producing artifacts, etc.

Generally, students appeared to have recognized the value of using the G Suite for Education since their evaluation of the whole experience of using it was very positive with the majority of the students characterizing this experience as very good. Though, the practical experience gained proved that some training prior to the actual teaching process would have been really of great advantage to the educators.

These challenges were identified by the course instructors while the course was taking place, and effort was made to deal with them by communicating constantly with the students and providing extra help to the students that requested it.

As the popularity of cloud computing is developing, its potential in education is emerging as well. Cloud services have found their way to different educational environments and even though research in the use of cloud technologies in education is young, more and more studies focusing on the integration of such technologies appear in the literature. The G Suite for Education is one of the most widespread cloud services worldwide with Google being a colossal giant and leader in its field. Despite any difficulties users might experience, its tools are very well-received by both students and teachers, and as it appears in most of the research studies published, they seem to be producing very good results in terms of supporting and enhancing the learning and teaching experience.

Being an action research study, the present study has certain limitations, the most important of which is that results cannot be easily generalised, since the study was conducted in a restricted context for a short period of time. However, the study is ongoing and data on the use of the G Suite for Education are still being collected for the purposes of continuous evaluation and improvement. Moreover, the study does not investigate the students’ perceptions on the impact of the suite on their acquisition of the language. This is an aspect that could be examined in the future.

Despite its limitations, the study may yield some insights regarding future endeavours to integrate the G Suite for Education in ESP courses. The potential of the suite is clearly seen and its many affordances are given in the study. The most significant of all these affordances is the opportunity for collaboration and communication among students, allowing for social constructivist approaches to be followed. Research in the use of cloud computing in ESP is still in its infancy stage and a lot remains to be investigated. Future research in the field could concentrate on investigating the long-term results from the integration of cloud technologies such as the G Suite for Education in the educational process. It could also focus on examining in greater detail the cognitive reasons behind the success of these tools, which will reveal the way for the creation of more advanced technologies that will promote learning.