One of the great virtues of online, asynchronous teaching and learning is the power it gives institutions to reach and serve populations of students who might otherwise be unable to participate in higher education. Among those populations one of the fastest-growing in the U.S. is students who speak English as a second or foreign language. In traditional face-to-face courses, students who are non-native speakers of English must comprehend rapid, often idiomatic English as spoken by the instructors and the other students. Further, they must also be able to produce understandable spoken English utterances themselves in order to respond to questions or participate in discussions. This synchronous, largely aural/spoken communication presents certain challenges to non-native speaker students depending upon their level of English proficiency and the nature of their culturally-driven classroom behaviors. In contrast, many fully online and hybrid courses use an asynchronous communication model with text-based on modalities such as threaded conferencing and e-mail. Some writers have suggested that, for this reason, non-native speaker students may benefit from the asynchronous online format; there is, however, a paucity of empirical evidence to support the suggestion.
In this session the presenter describes a mixed-methods study of undergraduate online students at University of Maryland University College (UMUC). The study used both a survey and interviews with students who speak English as a second or foreign language and who have taken both face-to-face and online courses at UMUC. Analysis of the data suggests that some non-native speaker students do perceive benefits from the asynchronous communication that characterizes the fully online and hybrid courses offered by UMUC. The presenter summarizes the linguistic and cultural classroom challenges related by the students and then engages the session participants in a discussion about how asynchronous communication modalities can best be used to maximize the potential for success of non-native speaker students.
