One of the biggest challenges with online classes is getting students engaged and working collaboratively. Breakout rooms seem to be the answer to both engagement and collaboration issues; however, these rooms can pose a whole new world of challenges. How do you utilize your breakout rooms to optimize student group work?
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Many of us have been teaching from home for more than a year. What a crazy milestone! While at home, we have all been trying our best to support our students by using various online and offline tools. It has been a tremendous learning journey for both teachers and students. However, often meaningful interaction is missing in our online class. Additionally, with lower-level students, introducing a new tool or online source can be challenging because of a lack of technological knowledge. This is where WhatsApp comes in handy.
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If you’re a Twitter user, join the next #CdnELTchat on Tuesday, March 30, when our topic will be: Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. Below is a recap of the March 16 chat written by #CdnELTchat moderator Bonnie Nicholas.
A little over a year ago, on March 11, 2020, our lives were upended when the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Most schools and learning institutions in Canada closed to in-person learning soon afterwards, and many of us found ourselves teaching online classes for the first time. As we left our workplaces, I suspect few of us thought that we would still be in the midst of the pandemic a year later.
With the new trend in education due to COVID-19, many language classrooms have been moved to hybrid, synchronous, or asynchronous modes of delivery online. This change has certainly impacted the socio-cultural aspects of our classroom dynamics in many different ways.
Approaches to building community and the related language interaction have been impacted by the move to online delivery, and educators have sought assistance by looking into various EdTech tools to make up for this gap. One of these tools that I have found helpful in my language classrooms is VoiceThread.
Post by: Jen Artan and Vanessa Nino
On January 29th, 2021 we gathered on Twitter through the hashtag #teslONchat to discuss engagement strategies to utilize in our virtual classes. The guest moderator of the evening was Jen Artan ( @JenArtan). Jen is an experienced Continuing Education Instructor with the Thames Valley District School Board, Instructor with IWC Hamilton, and Materials Developer with LearnIT2Teach. A certified Google Educator (Level 2), TESL Ontario Webinar Presenter, TESL London Social Media Chair, and a recent Masters of Education graduate from the Ontario Technical University, she likes to keep current on educational technology for adult learners.
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How do you provide feedback to your students? Do you send them emails with feedback? Do you fill out a report card with descriptive feedback? Here’s a final question and I’ll get to my point! How fast is your typing?
Typing down all the comments in any application can be time consuming for teachers and perhaps frustrating if your typing speed is below average. According to a study done at Cambridge University, the average typing speed is 52 words per minute (Dhakal, 2018). If our speed falls below this number, why not use a shortcut?
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COVID-19 has taken its toll on people’s mental health.
Recently, I decided to teach my students more about the topic. We were going into lockdown before the Christmas break and I thought it was relevant.
In this article, I am going to share some of my ideas about how to keep Google Classroom neat and organized, as well as how to use Jamboard as an effective whiteboard.
Google Classroom
Google Classroom (GC) has become the primary instructional platform for most teachers in Ontario since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. I like it and I hate it. I like it because it is such a powerful platform for teachers to deliver content to students. I hate it because it can sometimes be messy and challenging when it comes to organizing content. It took me a while, but I found a way to organize it.
If you’re a Twitter user, join the next #CdnELTchat on Tuesday, February 9, when our topic will be: What should we keep doing in #ELT? Below is a recap of the January 26 chat written by #CdnELTchat moderator Jennifer Chow.
Whether we were ready or not, since last spring COVID-19 has forced almost all of us to become online teachers. For many of us working in ELT, the move to online teaching was a giant leap out of our comfort zone. As the pandemic enters its second year and mostly-online teaching and learning continues, we have an opportunity to think critically about our practices and to reflect on what we should maybe leave behind. This was the theme for the January 26 #CdnELTchat; the follow-up chat is on what we should keep going forward.
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Language ego is a real phenomenon. A concept coined by Guiora (Brown, 2000) “language ego” is a learner’s second identity as they come to see themselves picking up a second language. One of the most vitally important responsibilities of an ESL teacher is to ensure that students’ language ego is well protected.
Conventionally, in physical classrooms, due to the existence of face-to-face communication, learners might experience more fragility and defenselessness with their peers. I have personally experienced the sheer fear and anxiety that the physical interaction and presence of others with their eyes placed all on one person can create. However, through online platforms of teaching and learning, I have noticed that learners feel safer and more secure about their language ego, and I have seen improvements in learning.
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