Psychological Difficulties during the Covid Lockdown: Video in Blended Digital Teaching Language, Literature, and Culture

Abstract

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has caused an urgent necessity for higher education institutions and their teaching staff to move the educational process online in the shortest possible time. It should be admitted that higher education worldwide is changing, and institutions face challenges when adapting to the new COVID-19 reality – blended digital teaching and learning. They are tackling several issues connected with the essence of virtual education, its technical aspect, and students’ learning environment. During COVID-19 lockdown, teachers have to prepare and deliver their classes from home, simultaneously coping with numerous professional and technical challenges, often without any appropriate support. In addition to that, they were lack of technology literacy, professional knowledge, and experience needed for successful E-teaching. Besides, a new mode of blended digital teaching and learning also made them consider technical and administrative aspects of the current educational process, namely to use new educational platforms and tools, organize active workflows, and work out critical educational principles to design and facilitate practical online experiences. Along with the challenges that the teachers face in such conditions, they should be able to cope with the stress and psychological disorders of pupils and students. The article emphasizes the abnormal psychology of youngsters (pupils and students) as the result of stress and anxiety that appeared during Covid lockdown – the application of psychological science to understanding and treating mental disorders – and the use of video as a productive means of avoiding psychological disabilities. The research objective is to prove that video is an effective educational tool for avoiding psychological difficulties in blended digital learning during COVID-19 lockdown while teaching foreign languages, literature, and culture. Special attention is paid to psychological strategies of overcoming stress during COVID-19 lockdown, as well as to effective ways to students’ adapt to a virtual learning environment, development and implementation of anti-stress methods, which heighten their motivation. The article also heads on and explores potential solutions to educational problems that one can encounter in the new educational process at the post-COVID-19 epidemic period, such as the quality of education offered, its cost and availability, internationalization, and employability.