Do teachers need to be in the room in order to effectively deliver a lesson to a group of students? Not according to Nathan Lomax, who is conducting training for Libyan teachers in the UK by using Skype with the help of local trainers. Here are his top tips for teaching classes using with a computer.
With no visual cues in the classroom face-toface, it’s difficult for the instructor to make guesswork-free judgments basing their decisions on the mood of the classroom, or to be able to address particular needs of students. However, with careful scheduling and student-centred activities It is possible to present stimulating and beneficial classes to large groups of students using Skype . My experience has been with live online TKT (Teaching Knowledge Test) classes with British Council. British Council. Here are some of my suggestions for teaching groups of learners via remote.
Keep the directions simple
There is no way of knowing what the quality of internet connectivity will be, and when it is possible to experience power cuts, it’s important to give detailed and clear instructions for each course in the lesson plans — particularly for trainers local to the ground who are accountable for teaching. They might need to know what to do even if the connection is not working.
One of the benefits of trimming down oral instructions is that it can encourage you to limit your teacher’s chat duration (TTT) -something that all teachers of languages have to endure often.
Make sure you are aware of learners’ needs and problems
It’s generally a good idea to arrange a brief before-lesson discussion with trainers who are local to go through any difficult questions with them.Read about expressdigest At website Be prepared for some things to be missed in translation and always to go to plan. Also, some tasks may take longer than you anticipated because it’s often difficult to explain what students ought to be doing from a distance.
The culture that is prevalent, local trainers may tend to elaborate on the activities, and they may be reluctant giving control over the learners. When they are done with the course However, they’ve become accustomed to the concept of helping, rather than leading, the class.
It should be fun and social.
As in a conventional class, it’s important to include ice-breakers as well as warmers in the beginning of every class, such as roles, surveys, and entire-class mingling exercises (onestopenglish is a great site to find these). The students are eager to interact!
Teachers are aware that the manuals that they use for classes can be dry and require some tweaking in order to make them more learners-focused and communicative. I do this by translating documents from the manual into a variety of dictation (running groups, running, back-to-back) and then placing the text on the walls for students to explore and talk about. If you’re lucky enough to have great assistance in the field (as I do in Libya) They’ll also help prepare the material needed for these tasks (photocopying as well as chopping and hanging things around the room) prior to the time of.
Encourage a lively atmosphere
It doesn’t matter that you’re on the other side of the world doesn’t mean you shouldn’t bring some enthusiasm into the classroom. The majority of students, young and oldalike, enjoy competitive games and activities. I have found that miming games like backs-to-the-board and board slap are the most successful. It is the competitive element that helps keep learners engaged and focused. Smaller groups are also able to create competitions based on the course content.
Learners can assist with classroom management
One of the issues of not being present but being in the room is that you have to ‘police the classroom activities (which isn’t easy occasionally). It is possible to do this by local trainers or students who can effectively take charge of the classroom management. If you’re actually training local teachers, you’ll be developing their classroom management skills.
Be familiar with the technology
If you’re thinking of teaching online you’ll need familiar with the options at your to choose from. One of them is the ‘share screens’ function in Skype and allows you to share anything that you’ve got on your desk, such as instructions, flashcards or games like Blockbusters played in PowerPoint. If your school uses projection devices to interact with you, then your desktop is effectively an interactive whiteboard when using the share feature.
Be prepared for glitches and, as far it is possible, set the things up beforehand so it doesn’t take too long fixing the microphone, focusing the projector, and so on.
Find innovative ways to give feedback
Although remote teaching makes impossible to observe individual and group activities in person, it is possible to provide feedback on students’ performance. Edmodo is an excellent way to connect with students on an individual or group basis, and allows students to collaborate on assignments as well as provide feedback. It’s a safe and secure way to study socially and an excellent alternative to Facebook particularly if you desire to avoid being flooded with requests for friends.
Summarizing
On the whole, if lessons are organized well, that include plenty of enjoyable activities as well as well-trained teachers on the ground It doesn’t matter if the trainer is absent or present. In fact, as long as the guidelines are clear, and the absence of the trainer will make lessons more focused on the students.
I’d recommend online education to everyone, so long as you’re willing to have patience with technical glitches. If these issues can be worked out as they are, the future for online training is looking promising.