Image taken by me
Benefits of a Face-to-Face Learning Environment
As my class prepared a small celebration for the Lunar New Year, I was reminded of how much being together in person means to the community of the class. This is something that I feel wasn’t quite the same during my program’s one and a half to two years online during the pandemic. Something as simple as decorating the room with some red lanterns got my students collaborating in a way that wasn’t possible online. The sharing of food from different cultures, actually getting to try some, not just looking at pictures, really makes a difference. This year I was fortunate to have Chinese, Korean and also Vietnamese students in the group and we got a chance to learn about each of their New Year traditions.
Image taken by me
Image taken by me
Image taken by me
Not that there cannot be a positive community feel to an online class, but it is different in many ways – from my experience. Celebrations are one, and field trips are another. Physically visiting a park together, talking and taking pictures, helping each other participate and learn is another key that was missing during the pandemic online time. We still did virtual field trips and activities. One excellent virtual field trip was with the Royal BC Museum. I did this twice with my class – once we did an Indigenous themed virtual meeting and another time we did one on BC animals and habitats. The guide was great and knowledgeable and showed us many artifacts and answered questions. However, last year we had the chance to visit the museum in person, and what a difference. The students enjoyed wandering around at their pace and touching some of the interactive exhibits – again the reaction and feeling from the class was different when the trip was face to face.
Benefits of an Online Learning Environment
The online environment, though challenging in the beginning, quickly revealed many benefits – the top of which, for my class, was attendance. Without having to deal with factors like the bus, car issues, and childcare, I had more students attending regularly during the online pandemic years than in the past, or even now. One of the things that I love about teaching adults is that they are choosing to be there in the class and as such I usually have their full attention and cooperation. But life issues can often sabotage their learning. The convenience of online learning saved many of them from dropping out. I had at least 4-5 parents or grandparents whose child would make an appearance during the class – something that would not be possible face to face.
One of the virtual field trip/activities we did while online was through the Burnaby Art Gallery – one of their outreach programs. They delivered the supplies to the main school, and then the students came to pick up their individual supplies. This worked very well – I had only one student who couldn’t participate. Then we met an artist online and we all did the project from our homes. The participation was much higher than if I had tried to organize meeting at the Burnaby Art Gallery for a particular time – I would have had to take child drop off and pick up times into consideration and even then, many may have just passed on the experience because of having to travel to Burnaby.
We all created a print like the one below:
Conclusions
When it comes to my class of adult EAL learners, there are benefits to both face-to-face instruction and online learning. As for what makes one environment more meaningful then the other, I think that depends on the student and their individual situation. If I had to sum it up: online learning is convenient and can make lessons more accessible, but there are some experiences, especially cultural connections like food and field trips, that really benefit from the face-to-face touch.
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