Elementary School Parents’ Perspectives on Online English Language Teaching During Covid-19 Pandemic

To prevent the spread of Coronavirus in the country, the Indonesian government mandated all educational institutions to implement an online learning system for students, including elementary schools. In this case, all stakeholders (school bureaucrats and teachers) and users (parents and students) experience an unprecedented change in terms of learning mode from full-time face-to-face learning to full online learning through various online platforms. In Indonesia, English subject is currently considered local content at elementary schools without any standard instructional framework/curriculum from the government. At the same time, young learners may also experience adversities in online learning activities since their self-regulated learning skills and digital literacies are still in their early development. Parents, as more knowledgeable others, are expected to accompany the children’s online learning activities. However, studies that explore parents’ perceptions in an online learning setting are considered limited, particularly in the Indonesian context amid the global pandemic. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the perceptions of 40 Indonesian parents in accompanying their children in online learning activities during the stay-at-home period for more than one year from the beginning of 2020. The results reveal that most parents expressed their interest in what their children learn and supported their children in learning English online. However, most of them also had concerns about developing their children’s productive English skills and other aspects, such as limited classroom interaction, ineffective teaching media/method/material, and limited learning duration.