I
can't say this is the case for every EFL/ESL teacher, but I suspect I'm
not the only one who has felt a bit of information overload as a result
of our scramble for the online world.
Having
found myself attending some webinars on 'how to use ___ to teach' and
reading through numerous accounts of how someone else's first online
lesson went, I started wondering if it was the best use of my
professional development time. What I really need is to ensure that I
can maximise both learner engagement and communicative use of language
in all my online lessons.
(I'm fortunate to be one of those naughty kids who won't stop touching random buttons, so it doesn't really take me long to get to grips with new technology.)
(I'm fortunate to be one of those naughty kids who won't stop touching random buttons, so it doesn't really take me long to get to grips with new technology.)
Thus I've come back to the familiar mantra of the 'action plan':
- Step 1 - Putting myself in my students' shoes, how would I want my online lessons to be? Interactive? Webinar-style? Conference-style (the teacher as an online moderator)?
- Step 2 - What criteria should I measure the level of 'success' in any lesson? The classic 'talking time'? Level of interest? Learners' achievement?
- Step 3 - Using the above criteria which I've set for myself, reflect critically on how a lesson went.
- Step 4 - Identify areas for improvement, then research how another way of using the same technology can bring about what I want.