It’s not uncommon to be unsure as to how to motivate your online students. Or, perhaps you want to create a virtual classroom that can engage even the most easily distracted young learner.
Fret no longer: there are so many online teaching approaches and tools available designed to do exactly that – and more. All it takes is familiarising yourself with what’s out there!
- Get off on the right foot
If you want your students to start engaging with your lessons, they should know immediately how to join them. If you’re working with young learners, that could mean explaining how to connect – in detail – to their parents. Alternatively, you could consider creating a document with simplified, detailed instructions. Don’t be afraid to resort to translation if necessary.
You should also establish rules for your online learners from the first lesson. These could be anything from having their cameras on throughout the lesson, asking students to mute themselves when they’re not participating or even arriving on time. This will help avoid any disruptions.
- Record your lessons
There will inevitably be lessons that some students will be unable to attend, be it due to illness or other commitments. In these cases, it’s important that your students don’t fall behind as it could potentially lead to them losing interest in the lesson and getting distracted, or worse: distracting others.
One of the best ways to keep everyone on track is to record your lessons and make sure your students always have access to those recordings. That way there are no excuses and they can go over any missed classes at a time that suits them. Moreover, the recordings can serve as a revision tool if students find that they are still unsure about topics you have covered together.
- Use interactive activities
Not only does the use of interactive activities promote collaboration, but it can also be incorporated into lessons that students normally find tough. Websites like Baamboozle, through which teachers can create quizzes or use premade ones, can help get your students excited about tackling difficult subjects. What’s more, you’ll be able to evaluate their understanding.
Another option that requires less prep would be to get your students to give presentations. These could be collaborative or individual, and it would allow them to experiment and produce with what they have learnt independently. However, if your interest was piqued more by the use of educational games, then check out aptgadget.com for other ideas.
- Get them creating
While it may be out of some of your students’ comfort zones, utilising tools like Canva is a great way to impress on them the real-life value that your lessons have, especially if you’re an English teacher. Canva can be used in a variety of ways and one example lesson could be a CV-making competition. Students could workshop each other’s work at the end and choose the best one.
If you’re looking at modal verbs, another activity could be to get your students to make signs for various places using the modal verbs you have studied. This is a great way to contextualise what they learn in class while still doing something fun and creative.
- Use teamwork
Most online meeting platforms will have a breakout room function. What this means for you as an online teacher is that your students can take the reigns when it comes to their learning through group work. Instead of passively listening to their teacher, your students can set about putting their heads together to complete tasks that you set.
Throughout this process, you can monitor and help your students by flitting between breakout rooms. As you will not always be present and ready to call on your students with questions, this may help to flip the script and place your students at the centre of their own learning. They’ll need to directly ask you to clarify things when they’re unsure, promoting engagement.
- Flipped learning
If you really want to guarantee a fun learning environment in your virtual classroom, then confidence is key. One proven way to accomplish this is to use the flipped learning teaching method. This involves providing material for your students to take a look at in preparation for their lesson so that when they arrive, they already have a basic understanding of the topic.
Making this information accessible rather than gatekeeping will empower your students and you’ll be able to use class time more efficiently. Instead of muddling through new topics your students have never studied before, you can instead focus on deepening their knowledge of the language or subject material.
- Set goals
As a teacher, you will have your own goals in terms of what you would like your students to accomplish during their lessons with you. However, for your students to come to every class engaged and ready to learn, you must communicate these with them.
Knowing what they are working towards, and more importantly, when they have reached certain milestones in their learning, will keep students motivated. It will also provide structure and purpose to their lessons. So, if you want them to enjoy virtual learning, communicate where they’re at in terms of progress, and give them a reason to show up.
- Request feedback
One of the best ways to check that you have been successful in creating a fun learning environment online is to ask your students, who have experienced it first-hand. You want to be sure that you are consistently hitting the mark, therefore requesting feedback is crucial.
Remember to try and view feedback as a tool to help you reflect and improve, and not take it personally. Not every student is the same, which means that you’ll most likely need to make adjustments here and there to create an interesting virtual classroom that meets the needs of everyone.
Overall, how you choose to tweak and finesse your virtual classroom is entirely up to you. Different class sizes and age groups may benefit from different tools, so it won’t always be a one-size-fits-all kind of situation.
If you’d like to read more about virtual classrooms specifically for those in the ESL industry, extra tips can be found in ESL teacher blogs and pages on The TEFL Org.
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