Many teachers in the UK are now working from home and teaching online. Recently, I have begun teaching online myself, and wanted to give some tips for those who need to get use to this big adjustment.
Firstly, having a schedule and a realistic set of goals of what you want the learning to achieve is important. It is difficult for some students to study from home due to family distractions, unreliable wifi, sharing computers etc. Try to give them small daily tasks to achieve, which are manageable and realistic. Additionally, having some pre-recorded videos or live feeds may help them feel as if the students are in a learning setting. By relying on third party content, it can cause the student to feel a bit detached.
Secondly, if you are not so familiar with online teaching technology, I suggest taking some courses from Futurelearn or NILE elt, which have fantastic *free* courses, which will help you. I recently took the “Take your teaching online” course from NILE and found it extremely helpful. It offers a good introduction to using virtual learning environments (VLE) and video conferencing software such as zoom. Many of you may be familiar with such software since working from home. I found it a great, basic guide and very helpful for me.
Thirdly, depending on your teaching setting, a school, language centre or private tuition, it may be useful to use Edmodo, which allows parents to track their child’s progress. This gives the child accountability and reassures the parent that work is being set and progress is being made. It also allows you to share additional resources, which the child could use for self-study or with their parents.
I am relatively new to teaching online, so if you have any additional tips, I would love to hear them. Please leave me a comment.
Here is a list of useful resources;
https://www.futurelearn.com/subjects/teaching-courses/teaching-english-tefl
https://www.youtube.com/user/crete1987
Thank you for reading!
Ms A Tutoring Services 