Face-to-face learning, or f2f for short, is learning where the teacher and the learner are in the same place at the same time.

Education, which means supported learning, is traditionally divided into two types:   distance learning and f2f.    Of the two, f2f is the more familiar.    F2f is what goes on in schools, colleges and universities.    So f2f is often used as if it were synonymous with traditional education, distance learning being a late-comer, and an outsider.

Actually, there is a subtle distinction between traditional education and f2f.    Traditionally, at least in the popular view, control is in the hands of the teacher.

F2f, on the other hand, ranges from lectures, where learners are mostly passive, through classes, where there is some interaction, to tutorials where the learner can have as much control as the tutor.    F2f does not necessarily imply a presence, or absence, of learner control, only contact in time and place (synchronicity to use the jargon).

F2f is a relatively neutral term.    But in so far as it has resonances, they are negative, perhaps because most expressions using the word face, or related words, have negative overtones, often of difficulty, superficiality or confrontation:   face up to, face the music, face-off, in your face, face down, two faced, face value, facetious, facile, face-saving, fly in the face of, lose face, on the face of it, and so on.

Distinctions between f2f and other types of learning are, in any event, becoming blurred.    Video technologies mean that f2f education can take place at a distance, over the web or a videophone.    Online chat rooms allow learners to "talk" in real time.

F2f has moved towards distance learning.    And the latter has moved towards f2f.    Indeed, as one online glossary puts it, “distance education does not preclude the use of the traditional classroom” [1]

And much of open and distance learning emphasize learner control to the point at which support becomes peripheral, or even redundant, and it blurs into informal learning.