Starting as a New Teacher Online
After having the main things set up such as your program, working for yourself or in a business, and getting everything ready, the next step is to find out about your learners and start planning your classes out. Your first classes should always be a bit of introductions and an analysis of what their strengths and weaknesses are and then plan around your analysis of your students from your first lesson onward.
When it comes to planning out your classes you need to make sure you first understand your class time. Do you have classes that are 1 hour? 50 minutes? 30 minutes? Then from there you plan around the class to make sure that there is interaction going on during the class time, whether that is worksheet time, group work, or speaking. It’s best to spread your classes out with various activities so that you can keep your students interested and also keep the class time flowing. Also make sure to stick to your plan whenever possible in order to help keep yourself organized during your classes.
As a new teacher for online classes, managing your classes can be a bit overwhelming when you start having your first lessons because you have to focus on: your plan, the students individually, the chat, and everything else that comes up during the lesson (maybe even technical difficulties). That being said, it is important to make sure that your video and audio are always working before you start every class.
In addition, also remember to always review. After you finish talking about a topic go back again and review it with the students one more time. Focus on the key vocabulary, phrases, and grammar that you need to teach them so that you can give them a bit of closure when you wrap up the main key points during each activity. Always going over the required materials, and then going over it at the end of the activity helps with your lesson timing as well as helps your students with remembering what was taught in class. Also try to incorporate your students into the opening and closing of each activity if possible.