Foreign Language Teachers’ Training in East Asia under the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This article presents an experience of East Asia countries in the training of foreign language teachers with three objectives. The first is to incorporate the principles and values of multicultural world in the university curriculum. The second objective addresses the question of how to train an adequate number of highly qualified foreign language teachers with necessary knowledge and skills to prepare their students to live in the globalized world and contribute to the development of global and national economies. The third one tries to explore how to apply active methodologies in the teaching of foreign languages and to provide students with active distance learning tools to improve and guarantee the quality of the teaching–learning process. The results of the experience of East Asian countries demonstrate the potential of distance learning for the development of transversal competencies and the capacity of students to design and solve complex problems with creativity and knowledge of social and labour realities. The article presents the advantages of distance learning methods and techniques, which assume the combined responsibility of students and teachers in generating knowledge conducive to their professional development as foreign language teachers, corresponding to the needs resulting from the changes taking place in the globalized world.