The moderating effect of participation in online learning activities and perceived importance of online learning on EFL teachers’ teaching ability

With the sudden outbreak of COVID-19, many educational contexts shifted from traditional face-to-face instruction to online and remote modes of delivery. This inspired a surge of scholarly attention in various countries to disclose the status and perceptions of stakeholders regarding online education. However, most of the existing studies in second/foreign language contexts are limited to students' and teachers' perceived emotions and experiences in e-instruction. Moreover, the extent to which online participation and the perceived importance of e-education influence teachers' teaching ability has been widely overlooked. To fill this gap, this study explored the moderating influence of EFL teachers' participation in online learning activities and the perceived importance of online learning on their teaching ability. In doing so, a questionnaire was spread and filled in by 453 Chinese EFL teachers with different backgrounds. The results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) obtained by Amos (v. 24) indicated that individual/demographic factors do not affect teachers' perceived importance of online learning. It was also demonstrated that the perceived importance of online learning and learning time does not predict EFL teachers' teaching ability. Furthermore, the results reveal that EFL teachers' teaching ability does not predict their perceived importance of online learning. However, teachers' participation in online learning activities predicted and explained 66% of the variance in their perceived importance of online learning. The study has implications for EFL teachers and teacher trainers in that it improves their awareness of the value of technologies in L2 education and practice.