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| Teachers |
The Influence of a Good Teacher Can?
Teaching online seems like a really attractive option for many teachers. Unfortunately, teachers find that when they get into the virtual classroom, things don’t always go as well as they expected. When I started teaching groups of adults online I was already an experienced face-to-face EFL teacher, and I thought I knew how to engage students and respond to learners’ needs and interests. My face-to-face classes had lots of learner interaction and low teacher talking time. But online I suddenly found myself struggling to get students (particularly from lower-levels) to take part in speaking activities or respond to me, let alone interact with each other. I found the radio silence uncomfortable, and my teacher-talking-time went through the roof as I filled in the silence.
How Teachers Teaching Online Class in Pandemic?
The pandemic raised two concerns for the student and teaching community:
The first concern was tackled by most people who were digitally equipped by pursuing learning online. As for the second, we are all still exploring and experimenting different ways to maintain an exciting and vibrant learning space. Most of our teachers would agree that having a great connection with students is key to having a successful and productive learning session.
Here are some tips from our in-house teaching experts:
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| Online Classes |
How will learning continue?
Monitored online spaces to communicate,
share,
stay engaged,
Having a closed group on a preferred and secure social media platform will help teachers and students stay connected. You’d be able to stay in touch with your students and solve their doubts on the go. Here, they’d also be able to build a bond by sharing their thoughts and opinion, seek help outside the classrooms, and develop a sense of connectedness -- an absolute must for a healthy classroom environment.
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| Online Class Vs Virtual Classroom |
What would happen to classroom dynamics virtually?
Virtual classrooms risk being a one-way communication channel, where the teacher does most of the talking. But remember, that peer learning is as important. So reverse the role and get your students to prepare sections of the learning content and discuss these with classmates. This will add more flavours to the classroom, keeping students and teachers engaged in a lively discussion.
Best Way To Learn Online?
Let’s not forget learning by doing
The best way to learn is to be a keen listener. But if teachers also encourage students to do a certain activity as they learn, students are sure to become more engaged with what the class has to offer. It could be as simple as growing a little sapling while learning about plant life and sharing observations during online class.
Don’t create everything from scratch
To shift classes that have been conducted in person for over 100s of years to an online format, is certainly not an easy task! So focus on using content and tools available in the public domain instead of putting your energy into creating everything from scratch. Focus more on delivering the right learning content instead and keeping the curiosity and engagement levels of your classroom at an all time high.
Seek help when you need it
The beauty of being in the education space is that you need to work with a community to teach. Reach out to parents to set the right expectations and involve them too in the learning process. Learning and teaching need not be restricted to a Zoom call. You can always send across projects, assignments, and experiments that students can do from the safety of their homes, with their parents to facilitate the activity.
Maximising online interaction
I began to realise that there was something fundamentally different about communication in a virtual classroom as compared to a face-to-face classroom. It’s actually pretty simple.
In a physical classroom, you can have as many people talking at once as people in the room, and pair and group work can be used to maximize the time your students have to practice speaking in English. But in a virtual classroom (unless you’re lucky enough to have breakout rooms), you can only have one person talking at any one time without things getting pretty messy.
The standard pattern of communication therefore ends up being Teacher asks a question to Student A, Student A responds, Teacher asks a question to Student B, etc., with very little interaction going on between the students. The multi-channel face-to-face communication becomes mono-channel in the Virtual classroom.
