Teach English in Mapo Zhen - Xuzhou Shi

If you recently turned on a TV, read a newspaper or reached the internet in 2020 you certainly heard of the novel coronavirus, named COVID-19. The headlines and sensational reporting on the coronavirus have driven the world in fear as citizens of more and more countries are getting infected and the numbers continue to rise. While the majority of the world is largely unaffected, China is a different story. Even outside of Wuhan, normally bustling cities are deserted and empty with citizens choosing to stay home and wait out the pandemic rather than go to work or school and risk infection. China has the highest demand for TEFL teachers in the world. However, along with the rest of China’s economy, schools have also been shut down in most cities and provinces with children staying home to avoid the risk of infection. Some schools are continuing classes online where teachers and students can connect via online apps. Despite the damage COVID-19 has wreaked on the Chinese economy, it’s not to say that China’s TEFL industry has completely shut down. Where one industry comes to an end, another one comes in. Rather than have their children sitting at home lazy with nothing to do, many Chinese parents have opted to continue their child’s education online, where classes are taught via video chat and there is no risk of infection. Online teaching is nothing new. It remains the fastest-growing sector of the TEFL market today even without the added surge from the coronavirus outbreak. Teaching online has many appeals to it like flexibility in hours and the ability to earn a decent salary without ever leaving the comfort of your own home. You can teach from anywhere in the world with an internet connection leaving you free to travel wherever you like and earn the money needed to do so. It’s truly a wondrous innovation in education. Online teaching sessions are usually one-on-one but during the outbreak, most teachers are conducting online lessons with previous onsite existing classes, which can be up to 12 or even more. An average teaching session lasts about 40 minutes and largely consists of conversational practice. Teaching online is for sure different, but not a totally different profession. So let's get into ideas for online teaching. First, what we need to start teaching online. Basically, a single laptop can handle it but with the following extra products, you add more value to your class: 1.Ring Light and Stand - make sure your students can see your face. 2.Web Camera and Headset Microphone - be seen and heard perfectly. 3.Backdrop Stand - use this to hold posters or a backdrop to cover up your messy apartment. 4.Reusable Writing Boards 5.Story Telling Puppets. 6.Prepared in advance games, PPT, pictures, music, and videos of a target language, which you can use with the most online teaching apps. What method should we use during online teaching? Basically, we use ESA methods and here some ideas: • Warmer ideas • Interaction patterns • Instruction giving • Error correction -Warmer - "Show Me” Ask the students to look around their house for something (something long, something red, something you can play with, etc.) and show it to you. This game can be done in one on one classes or in a group class. Make sure to keep a scorecard, because a little competition doesn’t hurt. For older students, you can make it more challenging by not only asking for one object, instead, ask them to find things that fall under a certain category (objects that start with the letter P, things that you can’t see in a school bag, things that have multiple uses)。You can use this as a speaking activity as well. Ask students to describe the object or compare what they have from the others, what are some similarities or differences? -Interaction patterns In face-to-face classrooms, we have many options in terms of interaction patterns: T-SS, T-S, pair work, group work, T-text, mixed. In online lessons, mixed and group work are less applicable. Yet there are still ways to engage students in lively classroom conversations! Here are a few things: 1) T-S: Invite student onto the microphone one-by-one 2) Type up answers in the chatbox 3) Q & A chain – limited pair work, but still worth doing. 4) Speaking pair and listening pair - don’t forget listeners’ tasks. -Instruction giving In an online classroom, you can’t pace around the room and check on everybody. Even If you get them to turn on the cameras, it is still very difficult for you to monitor whether they are on the right task. In other words, there are limited opportunities for the teacher to provide in-demand re-instructions, and that’s why a teacher should make sure the instructions are crystal-clear in the first place. 1. Give verbal instructions and do a short DEMO, slowing down a bit for clarity. 2. Ask an Instruction Checking Question ICQ, don't ask "Did you understand?" 3. Put short notes (written instructions) on the slide about the task (time limit, expected outcome, etc.) 4. Tell them that they can type up their questions (if any) in the chatbox. 5. Set the time limit and learners started to work on their own. 6. When everyone is ready, invite the first speaker to talk. Even if you are teaching online, the basic techniques like giving a demo, asking ICQ, and monitoring for progress are still relevant. -Error Correction While students are talking, type up notes (good expressions, pronunciation issues, confusing words, etc.) in the chatbox. Once they finished, get their attention into the chatbox and encouraged self-correction or peer correction. The one main requirement for most online teaching companies is a TEFL certificate of at least 120 hours. So don’t let the fear of the coronavirus prevent you from getting your TEFL certification and earning a great salary either from the comfort of your own home or in an exciting and exotic destination abroad.