Reconnecting with New Zealand: There, online, and back again for English for Specific Purposes students with a culture focus, 2019–2024.

Many programmes taught under emergency then planned online conditions from 2020-2022 are returning to face-to-face or blended teaching modes. This article relates and reflects on student experiences before, during, and after the pandemic, in original face-to-face, emergency-online, planned online, and blended modes, on an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) programme with a special focus on developing cultural knowledge and local people-to-people connections. It uses student voice from semi-structured interviews and surveys, and teacher experiences, and compares our experiences with international ones. It describes students’ feelings that language and cultural learning aims were achieved by the online cohorts, but that the quality and amount of this were impacted negatively by the online mode, varied digital literacy, and varied accessibility & reliability of equipment & connectivity. The article concludes with reflections after the 2023-2024 face-to-face (mildly blended) programme in its new form and gives suggestions about materials and training for staff and students when preparing courses in future whether online, face-to-face, or blended. Suggestions, most of which apply to education in general, relate to training, skills, resourcing, flexibility, and linking language to culture.