Exploring the Degree of Awareness of Teachers Regarding the Use of Multimodality and Its Influence on Online Teaching: A Case Study of Online Teaching before and during COVID-19 in Kuwait
Abstract
Teaching and learning took place differently before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The
pandemic changed the way people lead their lives – switching from traditional teaching
(face-to-face) in a public setting to online teaching due to social distancing. The teaching
system was forced to accommodate distance learning during COVID-19 to complete
academic studies. As a result, some Gulf countries found it difficult to implement distance
learning and blended learning due to a lack of infrastructure and other challenges and
difficulties. In online teaching, to adequately meet the individual needs of students, effective
communication and cooperation between the teacher and the student is required. Thus, this
research seeks to determine the differences in teaching and learning during COVID-19. The
major aim is to determine how teaching and learning occurred before COVID-19 and how
effective they were during COVID-19. This paper studies teachers' use of multimodality in
teaching and their perceptions, knowledge, and experiences before and during COVID-19. It
also explores the implications and impact of using multimodality in teaching in line with
technology before and during COVID-19. Additionally, it investigates the opinion of the
teachers regarding their students' interpretation and interaction with multimodality.