Emotional Presence in EFL Students’ Virtual Study-Abroad Experiences Under the Pandemic more

Fri, Apr 29, 09:00-Tue, May 31, 23:55 Asia/Seoul

The long-term impact of the global pandemic on international education makes it imperative to better understand international students’ learning experiences in virtual learning contexts. Despite the importance of emotion in online learning (Torres & Evans, 2020), it has received scant attention in the studies on emergency remote teaching (ERT) experiences. Informed by an integrated model of Community of Inquiry (CoI) and emotional presence (Majeski et al., 2018), this study investigated the roles of emotional presence in ERT and the influential factors by interviewing 12 English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students who virtually pursued their graduate programs at a Canadian university during the pandemic. Findings of the research show that instructors’ and peers’ emotional perception and understanding played a vital role in shaping students’ learning experiences. Factors such as instructors’ approachability, ways of communication and course design had significant impacts on emotional presence in ERT. Implications for providing effective emotional support are also discussed.