Why I’m Not Teaching Live Online Classes
Fortunately for me, my school has given teachers quite a lot of liberty when it came to choosing how to design our online classes. For my department there were only three requirements:
We must use Ding Talk (A Chinese online conference call/ messaging program)
We must have some level of interaction
We must fill the class time with actual learning
With requirements like that, the options were endless! I decided not to teach live / conference call type classes, and here’s why.
Wi-Fi and Technological Issues
My mom always says, “Technology is great—When it works.” And we all know that technology works well only some of the time. My students are in cities all across the province, and some of them aren’t that developed. Even if they were, I know I can’t always rely on my Wi-Fi to be working well enough to handle video conferencing calls. And if I can’t rely on mine, how can I know that my students’ Wi-Fi will be okay? If a student has internet problems or loses audio or video, he then misses that part of the lesson.
Distractions and Limitations
We’re all having online classes because, well, we’re all at home. And by all, I mean all. That means I can only assume that my students’ houses are filled with dads, moms, little brothers and sisters—even grandmas and grandpas. If Dad’s on a business call, babies are crying, siblings are asking for help with homework, and grandma’s cooking lunch in the kitchen of a small Chinese apartment, there’s a good chance my student won’t be able to focus well, let alone hear what’s going on.
Also, a lot of my students don’t have their own computers, which means they could be using a family computer or trying to make things work with just a cell phone. What happens when Mom’s boss calls unexpectedly and needs the computer? I wanted to give my students the chance to pause their lesson if they needed to, without having to miss out on any information.
Smoothness
I’m teaching listening classes this semester, which means in a normal class, I’m switching back and forth between my own teaching and listening to audio or video files. Since I knew students would mostly be using their phones, I didn’t want them to have to switch back and forth between programs. For an oral English class, this probably wouldn’t have been a problem, but I didn’t want to have them jumping constantly from the material to me.
Increase participation
Participation is already something most students struggle with in an ESL classroom. It’s intimidating to speak out in a foreign language, and in a country like China, students are not used to being vocal in class. Transition that situation to a conference call, and your chances of participation plummet. Instead of making a difficult situation even more difficult by forcing students to speak, I just decided to turn participation private and written instead of making it public and spoken. Each class, students are expected to write out their opinions, show me their answers, or answer questions with me over text messaging.
Avoid Embarrassment
First, I wanted students to be able to avoid the embarrassment of having to speak up during a conference call, but I also wanted to be sensitive of my students’ home situations. If their family constantly heard them speaking in English, especially if they could only hear one side of the conversation, my students might feel embarrassed. And depending on their family members, some students might face backlash for even learning English in the first place. Students have shared stories with me before about older family members criticizing them for studying a Western language, as if they were somehow turning their backs on their own culture. Of course, this is not the norm, but I don’t want any of my students to go through that if they don’t have to. Of course, students can send me voice messages or videos if they want, but it’s not been a requirement in my online classes.
Opportunities for Self-teaching
Of course, we all know the situation is not ideal. But this is a great chance for students to learn a little bit more about self-teaching. Especially with a listening class, studnents aren’t given a lot of control over their learning. They’re forced to listen to whatever material the teacher provides, and they have no control over how they listen to it. At home, students can use headphones or speakers. They can pause and stop the tape. If they want, they could rewind and listen to segments again or even whole files again. They could continue to practice listening even after class is over. Students have a chance to see clearly that the word they put in is directly related to results.
Are you teaching pre-recorded or live classes? What’s been the pros and cons for you?