EFL SPEAKING PRACTICE IN DISTANCE LEANING DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC 2020-2021

Students at languages and translation departments at Saudi universities take listening and speaking courses. Before the pandemic, the students used to complete the activities in the textbooks which required them to engage in many real-life, face-to-face individual and/or collaborative small-group activities in the classroom such as role-playing, dramatization, inviting a guest, conducting interviews and others. However, due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, there was an emergency shift to distance learning at Saudi universities starting March 2020 , where all courses are being delivered online. Several platforms are being used in distance education such as Blackboard, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and others. The current study explores the types of online speaking activities that a sample of college instructors at some language and translation departments are currently using in distance education and how they engage students online in the absence of face-to-face activities, interaction, and communication. Survey results showed that EFL college instructors are using a variety of online speaking activities such as: (i) assigning a topic which the students research and prepare at home and then give an online oral presentation about it online through the platform; (ii) using online debates about some issues; (iii) answering problem-solving questions; (iv) student-created podcast on a topic of their choice and them in Speaking Center on Twitter; (v) combining listening and speaking activities; (vi) using . free online audio recording creator to record conversations and presentations; (vii) using the app and others. Students and instructors' views on the effects of the online speaking activities on students' speaking skill development in the distance learning environments are reported.