Due to Covid-19 pandemic, there have been great changes in every aspect of individuals’ lives. One of the fields that could not resist these alterations is the field of education. Similar to the case experienced in many countries all over the world, distance learning has also been adopted at various educational levels in Turkey. Within this process, most of the courses at tertiary level have been conducted online for almost three semesters. Within these online learning settings, the level of interaction among students and instructors has attracted attention especially in the courses requiring active participation in target language. Considering the communicative nature of ELT courses, it can be said that ELT students who need to interact with other learners and instructors for the improvement of their skills in the target language have faced with some difficulties. The current study, therefore, aimed to explore the level of student-student and student-instructor interaction in an online learning setting through qualitative research design. The participants of the study were 50 ELT students enrolled in Listening and Pronunciation I course. The study lasted one semester at 2020-2021 academic year. An evaluation and suggestion form including eight open-ended questions was employed to collect the data. The findings of content analysis showed that online learning process had a negative effect on the level of interaction among students and instructors due to several reasons such as students’ anxiety problems, individualized tasks, limited course duration, and technical problems. The findings also revealed that more group-oriented practices, more attractive activities and the improvement of the system were needed to boost interaction among students and instructors. In the light of these findings, some practical suggestions were provided.

Keywords: ELT, online setting, distance education, interaction, perception.