Communicating Affective Learning in Post-COVID-19 Speech Pedagogies

Marielle Justine C. Sumilong

Introduction

For teachers and students, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a time of serious

uncertainty, requiring unparalleled resilience and perseverance especially when education, by

and large, shifted to and relied on online learning. The researcher herself attests to experiences

of anxiety and uncertainty after being thrown into disarray when the pandemic suddenly and

unforeseeably affected her life as a teacher and a graduate student in March of 2020. In the

Philippines, basic and higher education teachers have worked through full school closures in

March 2020, minimal re-openings in 2021, and phased re-openings in 2022. Already three (3)

years into COVID-19, teachers and students’ heading back to campus has come as a welcome

relief to many; however, as with the previous shift to online learning, the researcher believes

that learning delivery-related changes and transitions anew may come with difficulties and

nuances.

The past years under a global health emergency have really put to the test schools and

teachers’ scaling practices and have brought about important insights on utilizing and

sustaining educational technologies to adapt to the rapidly evolving educational contexts.

Many of these principles such as online classrooms and self-directed learning have been

unpacked and explored in various international and local literature. Research on pandemic

pedagogies and instructional communication brought to light how learners had challenges

with accessibility, inclusion, and engagement; remote learning during the pandemic has

negatively impacted students’ learning attitudes, communication behaviors, and overall mental

well-being as the shift of learning deliveries attenuated teacher-student and student-student

interactions. Strong feelings of disconnect with their instructors, the course content, or their

fellow classmates have caused students to have negative perceptions of teacher-student

interactions in their online classes. Conversely, teachers have reported communication and

cooperation challenges, difficulties in classroom and resource management, and struggles

involving technology adaptations and COVID-related restrictions.

The prolonged school lockdowns that challenged teachers’ pedagogies and disrupted

students’ routines also blocked their access to basic school-based services and supports such as

organized recreation, peer learning and peer communication, and face-to-face interactions

with teachers and classmates –all of which are all crucial to students’ higher-order thinking

development, mental well-being, and activity levels. Having experienced demotivation,

exhaustion, and isolation herself, the researcher found no surprise that the pandemic has not

only led to inferior student performance on average but has also stretched to the limit teachers
and students’ social and emotional wellbeing. Studies that delved on students’ negative

affective states during the pandemic highlighted an increase in interpersonal conflicts and

worse academic scores. Similarly, teachers across the globe have unanimously accounted for

elevated anxiety, depression, stress, and other negative affective states. Although the emotional

impact of the pandemic varied among teachers and students based on their personal

circumstances, support systems, and available resources, providing mental health support and

creating a supportive and inclusive learning environment became especially crucial for

educators and educational institutions at this time to help address and mitigate these

aforementioned emotional difficulties.

The researcher turned to her foundational knowledge on affective learning –addressing,

changing, or reinforcing students' attitudes, beliefs, values, and underlying emotions or feelings

as they relate to the knowledge and skills they are acquiring– in a consequential attempt to

address and alleviate her and her students’ struggles during the pandemic. Affect as a learning

domain is primarily concerned with how learners feel while they are learning and with how

learning experiences are internalized so they can guide the learner’s attitudes, opinions, and

behavior (Beane, 1985). When COVID-19 hit, research on pedagogy, learning, and

instructional communication unanimously asserted how affective skills –empathy, resilience,

and the ability to cope with anxiety– played major roles in students' daily lives and survival.
Educators and researchers alike, even before the pandemic, have been advocating for affective

learning’s facilitation and integration in classes, along with the development of other cognitive

and social skills (e.g. mathematics, natural sciences, history, social sciences, and languages).

Because of its rather integrative role in teaching and learning, several factors or conditions in

both the environment and in the educator’s approach serve as prerequisites in fostering

affective learning in the classroom. At the height of a global health emergency, however, these

environmental conditions, teachers’ communicative behaviors, and teachers’ instructional

strategies were heavily affected and strained –thereby straining the integration of affect and the

practice of affective skills in remote classrooms, as well.

The existence of speech anxiety in communication classrooms –particularly in

performance-oriented courses in public speaking and presentation– has been established in a

wealth of literature in the past few decades. The emergence of COVID-19 not only brought

about changes into how these communication classrooms are facilitated and traversed but also

escalated students’ anxiety and other negative, communication-related affective behaviors (i.e.

reticence, demotivation, disinterest). Even before the pandemic, significant efforts have been

dedicated to developing strategies to empower students to effectively manage their speech

anxiety in various communication courses, including face-to-face, hybrid, and online formats.

The pandemic has only further emphasized communication educators’ mindfulness and
responsiveness to the well-being of students; the National Communication Association

(NCA) recommended the effective utilization of communication classrooms as spaces to talk

about mental health issues, engaging in thoughtful conversations, listening intentionally and

actively, and promoting well-being.

The shift to what is now generally recognized as "remote learning," while necessary at

the time, has proven to be no replacement for the physical learning experience students at the

start of the pandemic heavily coveted. Despite their breadth and heuristic value, COVID-19

research on teachers’ and students’ experiences share a fundamental limitation —most existing

studies rely exclusively on evidence and narratives collected only after schools were closed. As

the world and the Philippines slowly ease into post-pandemic learning deliveries, the

researcher believes that there is a pronounced need to observe how teacher pedagogies and

student performances change to adapt to the yet-again changing educational landscape. It is

crucial to explore affective learning and instructional communication in the post-pandemic

times to better understand how these contextual changes affect the emotional experiences of

students and teachers, and how effective instructional communication can support affective

learning while adapting to changing learning contexts. Questions on how teachers

continuously adapt their instruction to cope with the varying negative affective states of

COVID-19 and how teachers’ in-the-moment responses to work change as a result of the
different phases or waves of the pandemic still need to be addressed. In problematizing and

proposing pedagogical possibilities post-pandemic, it is also rather imperative to examine

students’ experiences and perceptions on how affective learning is integrated with the teaching

communication theory in this unique context.

Considering foregoing discussions on the pandemic’s effects on teachers and students’

affective states, this study aspired to understand the integration and facilitation of affective

learning in post-COVID-19 speech communication classrooms. More specifically, it sought to

answer:

How do speech communication teachers facilitate, integrate, and communicate

affective learning in their respective post-COVID-19 classes as perceived by their students?

As a qualitative, phenomenological inquiry, the study’s overarching goals are to unravel

students’ perceptions and experiences of unique classroom communication variables, and to

provide an in-depth, contextualized description of instructional practices post-pandemic. The

following objectives were set:

 1. To describe how Speech Communication instructors facilitate and integrate

affective learning in their respective post-COVID classes as perceived by students

2. To identify the communicative behaviors speech teachers employ to effectively

facilitate and integrate affective learning

3. To analyze the role of communicating affective learning in post-COVID-19

Speech Communication instruction

Significance of the Study

The educational landscape is ever changing, moreso with the imposition of a global

health emergency. Research on instructional communication is dominated by studies on

teacher credibility, power, and influence and their effects on student performances and learning

perceptions; this investigation attempts to shed light on instructional communication’s

relational dimension –instructor affective behaviors and students’ emotional responses.

Focusing on instructors’ relational behaviors and students’ positive and negative responses to

these behaviors will allow for unique, phenomenological depictions of 1) communicative

strategies teachers employ to continue the delivery of instruction in these unprecedented shifts

in modalities and pedagogies; and of 2) Filipino students’ lived experiences –including but not

limited to opportunities, struggles, and nuances– of learning continuity during a pandemic.

 By problematizing and contextualizing classroom communication elements, this

research endeavor aids in addressing the research gap on Philippine instructional

communication; moreover, it aspires to facilitate new knowledge in post-pandemic pedagogies,

classroom communicative behaviors, and even in interpersonal communication. The findings

of this study also aspires to contribute to the exponentially expanding body of

Covid-19-related research in the fields of speech communication, curriculum and pedagogy,

and educational psychology in the local context.

Situating affective learning in post-pandemic classrooms allows for a better

understanding of the emotional experiences of students and teachers and how they were

affected by the changing learning contexts. There is a pronounced need to study how these

changes have had an impact on affective learning, including students' engagement, motivation,

and well-being, as well as teachers' ability to effectively communicate with their students.

Moreover, studying how affective learning is communicated and integrated in the classroom in

the post-pandemic times may potentially identify effective instructional strategies for

communicating with students in online and hybrid modes of instruction, such as promoting

social interaction, introducing activities that encourage affective behaviors, providing timely

feedback, using multimedia resources, and extending other interpersonal behaviors. Because
the transitions from online to hybrid to fully face-to-face modes of instruction also

highlighted existing disparities in access to education and technology, understanding how

affective learning is integrated in the classroom may also potentially promote ways on how

equity and inclusion and education can be implemented to support students with different

learning experiences, needs, and backgrounds.

Scope and Limitations

Exploratory and highly context-based, the study acknowledges some limitations with

regards to its participants, methodological scope, and recommendations. First, the participants

will be limited to twelve (12) students under the University of the Philippines Diliman’s BA

Speech Communication undergraduate program at the time of the implementation. Since the

study’s objectives involve gaining an in-depth understanding of a particular communication

phenomenon and studying a specific relational, environmental, and cultural context, the

participants will be selected through purposive sampling.

Since affective learning is a type of learning that involves emotions, attitudes, and values,

the researcher believes that it is best analyzed through the perspective of students who

experience and interpret the emotional aspects of the learning process. Many instructional
communication researchers assert the importance of students’ affective experiences in the

classroom and argue that these experiences may be the central mediator linking teaching

behaviors to student reports of learning and other important classroom outcomes (Bolkan,

2015). For example, students may be able to identify specific teaching strategies, classroom

environments, or social interactions that affect their emotions and attitudes towards learning.

Moreover, analyzing affective learning from students' perspectives may help highlight the

subjective and individualized nature of the learning experience: every student is unique, with

their own learning style, background, and personal experiences. By analyzing affective learning

through their perspectives, researchers can gain a more nuanced understanding of the diverse

ways in which students experience and interpret their learning.

The study’s analysis will primarily utilize the students’ narrated experiences –student

experiences gathered through narratives is deemed compatible and crucial in fulfilling the

study’s objectives as participant recall is regarded as a strength in affective learning

measurement (versus quantitative methods) as it indicates true internalization (Thweatt &

Wench, 2015). Furthermore, since this research endeavor is exploratory in nature –other

quantitative and qualitative lenses, save for correlational and interpretive approaches, will not

be utilized.