The salience of students’ body language during in-person and online lectures at a Canadian university

Abstract

Professors teaching different disciplines at a university in Canada received an email invitation to fill-out an online questionnaire where they could reflect on and express their opinions about the pedagogical and communicative roles of the body during their lectures. The questionnaire was divided into two parts: one asking professors to comment on their own body language; the other inquiring about professors’ perception of their students’ body language usage. This article is specifically focused on the second part of the survey, where professors reacted to questions concerning awareness of students’ body language during classes held in-person and online. In investigating the perceived salient functions attributed to students’ body language, this study values multimodal competence, embodied communication, and it informs the concept of immediacy in the relationship between students and professors at the university level.