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Article published In: Australian Review of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 48:1 (2025) ► pp.78–97

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Rethinking self, presence, and participation in online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

A narrative study in higher education

ORCiD logo with link | UniSA Justice & Society
 | University of South Australia
Published online: 21 September 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.23008.one
Abstract
The shift to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a learning experience for educators. While online learning is not new, the sudden loss of familiar cues has highlighted challenges for learners and teachers. This paper focuses on the significance of language in virtual classrooms in an Australian university in the narrative accounts elicited from five educators. The analysis drew on notions of activity types (Levinson, S. (1979). Activity types and language. Linguistics, 17(5–6), 356–399. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), the dramaturgic self (Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), and learning as a reciprocal, meaning-making, and interpretive process (Scarino, A. (2014). Learning as reciprocal, interpretive meaning-making: A view from collaborative research into the professional learning of teachers of languages. The Modern Language Journal Special Issue, 98(1), 386–401. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The findings demonstrate that the participants responded to the challenges and possibilities they encountered by developing ways of rethinking self, presence, and participation in interaction with learners. We argue that this process involves an intercultural orientation to teaching and learning in online settings that is key to reflective practice, relationships of trust and shared understandings in teaching, learning, and knowing, well beyond the pandemic.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Data discussion
    • 4.1Experiencing challenges in online teaching and learning activities
      • 4.1.1What is going on?
      • 4.1.2Who is participating?
      • 4.1.3Who can say what to whom?
    • 4.2Rethinking and “doing” online teaching and learning activities differently
      • 4.2.1Reconceptualizing the activity
      • 4.2.2Making meaningful connections
      • 4.2.3Performing a preferred online self
  • 5.Rethinking self, presence and participation: Concluding thoughts
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (27)
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