Will a teacher’s small talk in an online lesson have an impact on the students’ satisfaction in learning experience? A quasi-experimental study by one-way ANOVA

Small talk, a speech event which is often inappropriately deemed unnecessary but in reality multi-functional in social interaction, has existed across different face-to-face settings in human communication. However, it remains unclear whether it has an impact on distance teaching online, which has become the new normal during the COVID-19 crisis. This exploratory research, therefore, conducted a quasi-experiment to study how three sections of college students perceived their satisfaction levels in learning experience on Zoom when their teacher performed or did not perform small talk in the online lesson. Statistical analyses indicated two results: first, students in the sections with teacher’s small talk had significantly higher means than those in the section without it; second, students in the section with teacher’s small talk within a teaching activity had a higher mean than those in the section with teacher’s small talk between activities. These findings reveal that teacher’s small talk had a positive impact on learning experience, and that infusing small talk into core teaching activities is desirable. Further studies using a qualitative design are recommended to describe how teacher’s small talk can serve different functions in online lessons via a video-conferencing device.