The Main Obstacles to Employing Online Learning for Arabic Language Teachers at the Secondary Level in Kuwait

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic spread around the globe, and all educational institutions shifted their teaching methods online. This movement represented a traumatic situation accompanied by barriers. The first objective of this descriptive study is to identify the major barriers that secondary Arabic language teachers (SALT) in government schools in Kuwait face during online teaching. Another objective is to indicate the impact of some independent demographic variables on the classification of barriers. The theoretical framework of the study is based on a review of the existing body of knowledge while considering the local environment in Kuwait as a developing country. The questionnaire included two main sections: (1) demographic characteristics and (2) factors categorized into three main categories, personal, legislative, and contextual barriers. A questionnaire was distributed to 1581 SALT, and the response rate was 35% with a total of 557 respondents. SPSS (version 27) was used to analyze the data. The results indicated that there were 25 significant factors involving SALT who taught online. The top two major barriers were e-cheating and weak financial incentives for online teaching. The results also indicated that nationality and governorate states play a significant role when teaching online. Specifically, Kuwaiti SALT were more anxious about online teaching than non-Kuwaiti SALT. Furthermore, the Farwaniyah governorate had the worst online infrastructure and faced more technical problems than other governorates. One implication of the current study is that cyber-crime laws and regulations must be changed to be more liberal and less conservative, especially with regard to freedom of speech and research when teaching online. A longitudinal study with multiple data collection points might be a robust option for identifying online teaching obstacles.