Teaching a foreign language online shares many common features with traditional teaching. However, there are some activities that prove easier and more effective when used in an online teaching platform. One of the benefits of teaching English online, for example, is the ability to conduct a different type of activity that isn’t possible at all in a traditional context.
Modern concepts in foreign language teaching involve creating scenarios that are close to real-life situations where the students can apply and practice the knowledge that they have acquired. Teaching a foreign language nowadays is seen as a process in which basic components serve as building blocks for students to perform simulations for real-life tasks. The closer the simulation is to real life, the more effective the learning process becomes. In this respect, an e-learning platform can bring many benefits to teaching English online in the virtual classroom. It can facilitate the teacher’s work and create some entirely new types of activities.
All foreign language teachers follow certain principles in their work. Some of us focus on fluency, others on general competence and skills, while others focus on knowledge, etc. Here are some easy-to-use activities that can prove very helpful in an online teaching platform.
General knowledge activities that provide more benefits to teaching English online
One of the many benefits of teaching English online with an e-learning platform is the possibility to create personalized content and share it easily with students.
In reality, every teacher comes across an online resource that looks great but doesn’t work in the precise context of the course. With e-learning platforms, however, creating, storing, transferring, and sharing resources has never been easier.
Once you design some digital content for your class, such as posters or handouts, you can save it for future use, organize it the way you want, make it visible for your students, and keep it for future reference when you need it again. This is very useful especially in foreign language teaching whenever you need to keep a chart, an infographic, or any other time-consuming piece of information handy for future reference.
Exercises and resources that increase the benefits of teaching English online in a virtual classroom
The benefits of teaching English online in a virtual classroom are also apparent when creating quizzes. Use them for checking student progress, as well as for testing previously covered material through the use of multiple choice questions, cloze tests, and other methods. Perform the exercises by embedding already existing online resources into the classroom management software.
A very interesting feature in online teaching is the use of videos. They bring lots of benefits to teaching English online because they convey the feeling of a real-life situation. Why not invite students to create videos of their own as an exercise when working on a given situation?
Passive activities that create more benefits to teaching English online in the virtual classroom
Of course, the well-known activities of reading and listening are easily performed in the context of the virtual learning environment. Give students an article to read, or, as mentioned above, a video to watch. Thanks to the eye-to-eye contact established with cameras in the virtual classroom, the teacher can monitor the students’ reactions. This is true for written text, and even more so for exercises with audio and video files.
The benefits of teaching English online create a more rewarding learning experience for students who tend to be more emotional. The virtual platform gives the teacher the ability to follow their reactions in order to diversify or enrich comprehension questions.
Writing, speaking, and interactive activities that bring benefits to teaching English online
Production-related activities in foreign language teaching include writing, speaking, and interacting. Writing is an asynchronous activity, meaning that it happens at different times for the writer and the reader. An online teaching environment provides an immediate benefit to writing, which is often given as homework. Here, the teacher receives the students’ assignments as soon as they finish. The tutor is able to show everyone what they did right and which parts can be improved. By comparison, the same activity in the traditional classroom would require scanning in the already corrected assignments that were written by hand.
Another time-consuming activity in a traditional classroom is speaking. Students are difficult to supervise when doing a speaking activity in groups. This involves a lot of attention from the teacher. In addition, when delivering the result, the other groups tend to lose interest or not pay attention to their fellow students.
Thanks to the benefits of teaching English online in a virtual classroom this problem is nonexistent. Every time a student’s attention wanders, everybody else can see it, which creates peer pressure on everyone to follow along. The sound quality is also improved through the use of headphones and microphones. And, if the students allow it, they can be recorded so that their oral delivery can then be used as a learning material.
Interaction-related activities, as well as projects, also benefit from this immediate contact, awareness, and readiness to cooperate. Students and teachers can share files, participate in different activity groups, and organize themselves in a much more accessible and horizontal way of communicating. Thanks to the diversity of features and tools in the virtual classroom, the benefits of teaching English online are countless. Online platforms provide a rewarding learning experience that becomes a successful alternative to traditional foreign language teaching practices.
TABLE OF CONTENT:
- General knowledge activities that provide more benefits to teaching English online
- Exercises and resources that increase the benefits of teaching English online in a virtual classroom
- Passive activities that create more benefits to teaching English online in the virtual classroom
- Writing, speaking, and interactive activities that bring benefits to teaching English online
