Beyond Face Value: Harnessing the Intellect by Looking Past Appearances and Offering Students Multiple Modalities to Participate in Online Discussions

Covid 19 mandatory online teaching brought about insights and paradigm shifts experienced on a global level by educators and learners alike. One example of such a paradigm shift was explored at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, in the English composition course. It was hypothesized that lower-level English composition freshman students may have had more cognition and confidence in whole-class discussions when offered multiple ways to participate because appearances on camera seemed to impede participation rates, performance and ideation, particularly with female students in the Muslim-majority nation. Subsequent in-class experiments examined the differences between participation rates and performances of students in whole-class discussions whilst online during Covid 19 in three response modes: audio, text and camera, and a follow-up survey collected opinions on using those modes. Findings substantiate the hypothesis that learners experience fewer inhibitions and more accurate English when responding through text compared with audio and camera, especially amongst female participants. Attitudes towards cameras also reveal inhibitions mostly stemming from concerns over appearances. Findings support Krashen’s theory on the affective filter as well as Plato’s theories on the physical senses as an impediment to the acquisition of knowledge. Specific cultural and religious beliefs, namely belief in the evil eye and guarding one’s gaze, may also have played a part in explaining students’ apprehension for using cameras. Recommendations for applications include allowing students multiple modes of participation in a blended learning approach, collecting data using automatic transcription through teleconferencing platforms such as MS Teams for language output analysis, and for educators to use this data to investigate their own implicit biases which may impede instructor performance.