Online vs In Person Lessons
Understanding the difference between online lessons and in person lessons is one of the biggest hurdles that people have when moving to online teaching. But you should also remember that teaching online and in person also have a lot of similarities. In order to understand and to work around the differences you need to be able to plan well around these differences which is what we will cover in this section.
When it comes down to the lesson order and the objectives that you will have in each lesson, it will follow in the same manner; however, the procedure of the class will change due to the difference of being online. You will need to make ways to draw your students into your lessons, make proper observations and analysis about your students, as well as find the right balances for your activities during your classes. Always make sure that you are using the tools that are available to you in your class program of choice, as they can make your online classes much easier and efficient.
When it comes to activities online, you are a bit more limited. You can have your students use the raise hand or emoticon features in the programs that you use in order to substitute for real hand raising. You can also use screen share in order to have a discussion with your students about the worksheets or documents that you assigned to them for the class.
Another big decision to make is how you will go about assigning work in and outside of class. Will you have homework assignments for your class? What will they be like? What will they focus on? How will they help your students in the grand scheme of things? It’s important to know what each assignment that you assign will help them accomplish. Understanding your students' ages, schedules, needs, and other things are all important when it comes to planning out how you assign work. If you have business English students they will be looking mainly for conversation and interaction and for the meat of their classes to focus on everything during their time with you and very little studying at home. Whereas if you have younger students, they will sometimes need work to supplement them outside of the classroom in order to keep them fresh and ready for the next class. It is very important to also gauge your students' specific needs, because for instance if someone who works is taking a business English course, they may be unable to finish homework on a consistent basis. In most cases your students should be learning both in class and in their own time, but try to make the right judgement call when the situation calls for something different.