When students study in synchronous online classes, they decide on a preferred mode(s) of communicating with the teacher. This small-scale qualitative research study aimed to explore student preferred modes of communicating with the teacher during synchronous online classes. The researchers used an online questionnaire to acquire data from three different groups of students, each containing three participants. Two groups were university students in China and South Korea, and one group consisted of adult learners in Somalia. All participants were studying English language development courses in synchronous online classes with the researchers. The study found that while most participants were willing to use their cameras, they preferred using the chat box and microphone without using the camera to communicate with the teacher. Additional findings revealed that most participants opposed having a mandatory camera usage policy and for camera usage to affect their grades or marks in the course.
