Hybrid lessons: a laptop and a speaker

It all started with an email this morning - one of the students ('Student G') had to remain in self-isolation due to pandemic regulations, and she would join the afternoon lesson online from home.

Despite my modest knowledge of the hybrid classroom/lesson, I'd never taught one up to this point. So I spent the whole morning trying to visualise the logistics in the classroom and think through a number of key questions in my head. How would my students be working together? What would Student G need so that she could follow our lesson successfully? How could I make sure the sound was all right for all students? How would I deal with unexpected issues with technology? Where should I place my laptop?

In the end, I decided to do it like this:

 

(Note that I'm using Student G as a kind of 'hyponym' of those who join an in-person lesson synchronously from their home.)

• I put the lesson's digital material (handouts and information-gap task cards) in a shared folder on OneDrive, so that I could share the link with Student G prior to the lesson.
  (N.B. The material is numbered 1 to 4 for easy reference.)
  
  
• I place my laptop in such a way that the webcam could capture all students working in the classroom. I also projected the online meeting on the classroom's television, so that all students could see Student G.
  
  
• I connected my laptop to a stereo speaker and set the audio at a level which was audible but wasn't intrusive, so that all students could hear Student G talking and vice versa.

 

What worked well: some reflections

• Instructions - clear, succinct instructions with the usual checking questions work just as well as in any online or in-person lesson. In a hybrid lesson, however, it would be a good idea to 'chest' the material for Student G in front of the webcam (hold it for a few seconds) before moving back to the physical classroom. It also helps when eye contact is made with both Student G and other students when giving instructions.
  
  
  
• Arrangement (pairwork and groupwork) - once the laptop is set up at a stationary place, it would be easy for any student to move to the 'workstation' space for pairwork. Groupwork might be tricky depending on pandemic regulations and how many people one can fit in front of a webcam. As usual, it would work better by moving the students to a new type of arrangement before giving instructions. (In our case, it was convenient because we had worked on Can you + verb (base form)? a couple of weeks before. Student A, can you move here? Thank you.) I also asked my students to speak up when they were working with Student G, even though the laptop's microphone was able to pick up my voice from afar. (N.B. The online meeting's noise cancellation setting was put on its lowest.)
  
   
• Attention spread - I got this useful tip from one of the webinars I've attended. (A big thank you to those teachers who shared their experience of teaching hybrid lessons!) Generally speaking, there is a tendency for the teacher to focus on either Student G or other students for the extended period of time. When I was teaching this hybrid lesson, I tried eliciting answers directly from Student G (Yes, Student G?) as well as the rest of the class (with a follow-up question: Student G, do you agree?). Similarly, this technique was applied to post-task feedback giving.
  
  
  
• Listening - to avoid issues with echo, I muted the laptop's microphone while I was sharing sound with Student G in the online meeting. This worked smoothly since other students were able to listen to the audio through the stereo speaker at the same time.
  

What could have been better

• Monitoring - It felt as though I wasn't monitoring Student G sufficiently, but it was the noticeable difference between the in-person and the online modes which created this false impression. In a hybrid lesson, post-task pair check will take on greater importance since it represents the crucial moment for monitoring Student G's answers. Another useful monitoring tool is the chat in the online meeting, which I'm going to address in the post-task feedback.

• Post-task feedback - I had to rely on whoever was working with Student G to make sure she had the correct answers. I've also thought about other means of giving Student G feedback: chat, virtual board, screen sharing the answer key, showing the whiteboard through the webcam or Teacher Talk. Given its bad reputation, Teacher Talk may sound less desirable, but it is actually less time-consuming than other means of giving feedback on a shorter lesson task - and it is purposeful Teacher Talk. Screen sharing the answer key would be useful if the lesson task is longer or the answers more complex. The reason why I decided not to use the chat was that it would have effectively meant I needed to give the same feedback twice (physical whiteboard and chat), but I'm open to different opinions.
  
  
• Technology - my students and I did with bare essentials - a laptop and a stereo speaker. What would have been better was a second camera/webcam facing the physical whiteboard directly, but it wasn't too time-consuming to rotate my laptop.
  

Teaching grammar: reverse order (interrogative and then affirmative/negative)

It was an interesting lesson yesterday in a positive way. The students were learning the present perfect simple in the context of single past actions/events (unspecific time). Since all of them are L1- and L2-speakers of Italian, there is no doubt that translation has played a certain role in their acquisition of this grammatical structure in English.

We started off with the topic of continents and countries. The students made a list of A-Z countries, A for Argentina, B for Brazil, C for Canada, and so on. This was an engaging activity for them.

The students were then shown a short dialogue:

Person A: I went to France two years ago.

Person B: Have you been to France?
Person A: Yes, I have.

The language clarification work then centred itself on the difference between a specific past time (past simple) and 'time not known' (present perfect simple).

After that, the students used their list of countries and practised the closed interrogative form along with the short answers.

In the next lesson stage, the students practised doing KEY Reading Part 2 to focus on the affirmative and the negative forms.

It was at this stage that the focus on -ve (pronunciation) and the form took place. This has made me wonder if some coursebook writers suggest a similar approach:

meaning - practice activity (focus on meaning, e.g. alternate responses) - pronunciation work - inferring the form - practice activity (gap-fill)

...

Fast forward to the language practice stages:

15 minutes left - at this point, the students had just finished doing a guess true or false sentence construction activity with a deck of paper cards (verbs). They were all making excellent progress. (Student A's current language level was very strong.)

Student A: Let's play a game.
Me: All right then. What would you like to play?
(various ideas from the class)
Student B: A-Z list of cities this time?
Student C: Simon Says?
Me: Right, let's have a vote. Who would like to play ...?

Then we played Simon Says for 5 minutes. (I joined in the game too.)

...

7 minutes left - the students wrote three questions with 'Have you + verb (past participle) ...?' which they would like to ask each other. We finished the lesson with another practice.

Note: This is a Teens KEY preparation class at Pre-Intermediate (A2) level.