Den digitala undervisningsformen – en räddningsplanka? : Gymnasieelevers erfarenheter av den muntliga kommunikationen i kursen Engelska 6

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to investigate and discuss upper secondary students’ experiences of participating in a synchronous video mediated digital education form in the course English 6 during spring term 2020, with a specific focus on how it creates possibilities or hindrances in developing the students’ abilities in oral communication. The study is based on eight exploratory semi-structured interviews at an upper secondary school in northern Sweden. Media ecological theory and social presence theory have been used as theoretical lenses in this study. The results show that the students to the greatest part experience hindrances in their oral communication. In the digital education form they are hindered in both their participation, interaction, and ability to discuss in a reflective manner. Furthermore, they experienced that the discussion style became more formal and impersonal due to the strict turn-taking and the lack of non-verbal communication cues. The students were more prepared, and they tended to be more monological in their participation. In addition, a difference in the relationships was experienced, and the teacher became the most important participant, caused by the difficulty of identifying the other students as “real” people on the computer screen.