Affective communication in the humanization of distance learning courses

The students welcoming and the establishment of respectful relationships is one of the understandings of humanization in a teaching and learning process. These relationships are established through communication between the people involved in a course. Thus, communication is a fundamental pillar of the process for humanization in an educational situation. In collaborative online distance courses, it is the choice of the pedagogical strategies that value interaction that gives the opportunity for affection in communication, aligned with the proposal of collaborative activities, to provide significant experiences to the students. Although facilitation via audio and video has been gaining prominence in the past few years, a lot of the interactions in online remote learning still happen through writing. However, even though written and verbal communication seems quite natural and familiar, both require a high degree of attention, as words are responsible for conveying emotion, affection and confidence and the use of a wrong word or a poorly elaborated phrase can generate potential misunderstandings among those involved. This article presents reflections on affective communication in online distance learning courses, and on the way it enables humanization in relationships.