This study analyses student teachers' perceptions when teaching a foreign language and presenting in a virtual learning environment. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, students on their initial teacher training programme were required to teach and present online for their end-of-module evaluation. Did the VLE help or inhibit their social, cognitive and teaching presence in the classroom? The impact of the virtual context is explored in the light of Horwitz's work on foreign language anxiety (1986) and Garrison et al. (1999) is also looked at in relation to their community of inquiry framework. A taxonomy of social, teaching and cognitive indicators was established, adding more detail on the emotion indicator of practitioners' social presence when teaching languages online. The implication for language teacher trainers is that student teachers need help to be able to control their emotions when being evaluated online and coping strategies need integrating into their programme of study.