摘要：COVID-19 pandemic as an ugly phenomenon disrupted all educational sectors and Afghan higher education institutions in particular. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on Afghanistan higher education institutions. It also aimed to determine the effects of students learning practices before and after the pandemic. The impacts of virtual learning on students’ performance during the COVID-19 pandemic were investigated in this study as well. For collecting the data, a semi-structured interview was employed. After collecting the data, the data were transcribed verbatim and four major themes were constructed: (1) students’ perceptions of learning practices before the outbreak of COVID-19, (2) the impact of distance learning modality during the COVID-19 pandemic and its challenges on students’ learning, (3) students’ learning anxiety during COVID-19 pandemic, and (4) level of students’ satisfaction from face-to-face learning system after a decrease in the cases of COVID-19. The findings showed that students learning process across the higher education institutions of Afghanistan have been worst affected due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The results also revealed that virtual learning modality during the COVID-19 caused more anxiety in students learning practices and it led to more isolation in their learning process. Furthermore, the attitudes of Afghan EFL learners towards virtual learning in the presence of COVID-19 were more negative. Additionally, Afghan EFL learners showed a high rate satisfaction towards physical learning modality as they experienced before the pandemic.
