Abstract
The study in hand is a mixed methods investigation that attempted to identify effective online teaching techniques exploited during COVID-19 at Saudi universities in promoting learners' engagement in classroom proceedings, mutual interaction, rapport between EFL learners and faculty members, EFL learners' comprehension of target content and motivation. A self-developed Likert-scale questionnaire was administered to generate quantitative data and in-depth qualitative data was gathered through a semi-structured interview protocol. Standard procedures were followed to determine content validity. The instrument was pilot tested and Cronbach-alpha was run to determine its reliability index. Inter-item consistency reliability of the final instrument was reported as .984 which is high reliability to generate reliable data. One hundred four (n=104) participants have responded to the questionnaire and ten (n=10) faculty members were interviewed. Descriptive analyses were used to present the results of quantitative data whereas deep insights were presented through the qualitative data. The results revealed that those teaching techniques which actively involved EFL learners during online pedagogy and generated mutual interaction were found extremely effective in enhancing target pedagogical objectives set for this investigation. ‘Lectures, E-portfolio and written feedback' were perceived as the least effective online teaching techniques. It is highly recommended that university faculty members should practice those teaching techniques during their online teaching sessions which generate active participation and mutual interaction to achieve the desired results.