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.