HOW TO ENGAGE STUDENTS IN ONLINE LESSONS
In the present day, online education is popular due to Covid restrictions. The pandemic taught us that online lessons are extremely necessary. Teaching online is not new because of pandemic reasons but it is certainly why it has increased its popularity in the past two years. Teachers should be trained to adapt and master this new teaching and learning environment as well as classroom management. Nowadays, online education is the new digital way of studying, from the comfort and safety of your home. Among its many advantages, you can be anywhere in the world and so your students, any device can be used to access online education. It also provides time flexibility allowing teachers to manage their schedules.
And taking into account that many online methodologies are being applied, we can state that online education is challenging. Engaging students, in groups or 1:1 lessons, is an important factor for learning to be successful. How can English Language Teachers engage students in online lessons? Let’s look at several tips to improve your students’ engagement. I am an English Language Teacher, so the focus of this article is Teaching English Online but all these tips can be applied to general online teaching.
#1 Build a strong sense of belonging
Students who develop a sense of belonging are proven to be more successful and happier. Belonging in online spaces is crucial to enhance learning and keep students motivated to achieve their goals. Communication is a crucial factor for this particular purpose and teachers should always think of new strategies to maintain communication as clear as possible if we want students to have successful learning experiences. It is very important to establish classroom respect from the very beginning. Some actions to improve the communication process are, for example, clear and consistent written and oral communication with students when setting goals and learning objectives, when giving explanations and giving homework, and when correcting mistakes and giving feedback. It is a key point to provide feedback in such a way as to encourage students letting them know that improvement is always reachable. Another interesting strategy is to try to keep in touch with students by sending them a message with friendly reminders of scheduled lessons, maybe homework, or any other important activities. An email every week is a good idea to tell them about achievements, or any goal they may have accomplished. For group lessons, a good tactic is to encourage your students to record short videos with personal introductions talking to the teacher or introducing themselves to the rest of the class. If the student allows, these personalized short videos may be shared in with the class later.
#2 Provide more interactive activities
There are many interactive ideas that teachers can implement in online classrooms. Let’s mention some of them:
Writing a Journal. Students get the task of completing the class journal on a specific day, taking turns, and sharing some thoughts. This journal can be a shared GoogleDoc. To encourage them the teacher can use prompt questions like What are you grateful for today? or What’s your favorite sport and why? or maybe Which is your favorite person? How does he/she make you feel?
Thought of the Day. The class can have a short morning meeting where they could share a thought or a quote of the day. This meeting could be used to express feelings and emotions.
IceBreakers. The teacher can ask a few questions at the beginning of each lesson to prompta short conversation and break the ice.
#3 Engage through debates/discussions
This type of activity is suitable for group lessons, online or in person, and with students who have at least a B2 level. The teacher can have a list of prompts to help at the start of the debate. A very interesting idea is to set up a background, let’s say, for example, there is a boat prepared to run off an island, for X reason, and there is a place for a few people. These people may be a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, and so on using a variety of occupational categories. The basic task is that each student has to justify his/her place in the boat convincing the others they are indispensable.
There are of course a lot of different scenarios and topics to prompt debate and discussions.
#4 Make students-researchers
This is a good practice for thematic lessons. If we designate a specific day for Science-related vocabulary, Music Day, or Hobbies, the teacher can ask students to research a specific topic on the web. At the end of the lesson, each student should talk about their findings explaining where they got the information and what they learned.
The research process is also important, they should learn how to make a roadmap, brainstorm, and do keyword research. You can ask your students to make a quiz for specific topics, for example, Nouns related to Cooking or Verbs related to Medicine with sample paragraphs or a pictonary. They can also design and write a magazine using that information.
#5 Conversational lessons
Like in debates and discussions, conversational lessons aim to make students apply what they’ve learned and use it to communicate with others. There are many conversational prompts as questions, pictures can be used for descriptions, a short listening followed up by comprehension questions, and many similar activities. These lessons are rich with opportunities to use vocabulary and structure.
#6 Flip your lessons
In simplified words, the flipped (or inverted) classroom approach means that passive learning happens at home and the active part of the lesson takes place in the actual lesson. In other words, theory and writing are designed as a task or homework to solve at home. The teacher uses conversations, debates, and more productive and collaborative activities in the classroom. So, the teacher creates more active opportunities for students to practice listening, speaking, and productive skills.
#7 Gamification
Let’s agree that games are always a good idea. According to eLearning Industry “Gamification is about applying gaming strategies to improve learning and make it more engaging for individuals. Gamification for learning can be beneficial because games instill lifelong skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, social awareness, cooperation, and collaboration. Games also motivate individuals, increase interest in certain subjects, reduce the rate of attrition among learners, improve grades, and enhance their cognitive abilities.” The strategies that teachers can incorporate into learning are point systems for completing tasks, badges for rewarding students’ efforts, leaderboards to encourage students to work harder, and challenges as tasks to develop problem-solving skills.
