ABSTRACT
Following scientific and educational isolation during half a century of communist dictatorship, Albanian universities were unprepared for the digital shift that followed the Covid-19 pandemic. Examining the Albanian perspective to learn vital lessons for the future, this study analyses the teaching/learning performance on the mandatory master’s course entitled English 401 Academic Reading and Writing taught during the fall semester 2020–2021 at EPOKA University, an international English instructed university in Tirana, Albania. The study is student-centred and utilizes a semi-structured questionnaire that was responded to by 92 graduate students from the Faculty of Economics/Administrative Sciences. The findings shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of this online course in equipping graduate students with academic reading and writing skills. The results were overwhelmingly positive on the quality of teaching and learning performance. Students provided comments and suggestions to further improve online courses, yet face-to-face learning was seen as irreplaceable. Most importantly, this study may lay the foundations of designing and adjusting curriculum language programs matching the real needs of students for ad hoc off-campus teaching scenarios in an uncertain future.
