This week we have in the spotlight Stephen, better known as EnglishTeacher!

“Stop Talking to Your Television!
A message to e-students and e-teachers.

Internet students are different to offline students: they are more demanding. People who ‘learn’ English over the Net want something special. If you don’t give it to them, they will go away.

So what do we teach? After all, if students are looking for something special, should grammar be our central focus? And how do we teach? Just think about the amount of material you have at your fingertips. Are you tapping into this resource or are you ignoring it?
What we teach over the Internet is very much dependent on the answer to the question ‘How can I get students to come back time and again without their own motivation being the driving factor?’ Unlike offline teaching where you can ‘impose’ your teaching and get away with a poor quality lesson once in a while, and where the motivation of the student (or lack of it) is counterbalanced by the teacher knocking on the door at a given time and day, with online teaching you need to provide material that is interesting enough for the student to want to come asking for more again and again and again.

In short, online teaching is precisely the opposite of offline teaching. I have a number of different hobbies: I read, I do woodwork, I play the drums, and I go white-water kayaking. Why do I do these? Because for me they are fun. A student who comes to an English class over the Net must get this same feeling of enjoyment. And the only way to provide that enjoyment is by always striving to provide the best quality content you are capable of.
Content needs to be dynamic. It should be alive and brimming with energy. If you provide dynamic content you will get dynamic results. My courses on Myngle started with very static content, but when I changed my method and started using more dynamic materials I suddenly found myself teaching up to 200 lessons in one month!

Now that I have understood the importance of dynamic content, I am working on courses which are beginning to look similar in format to a television programme – the only difference being that students are a part of the ‘programme’, and the focus is on learning English. These lessons are like ‘interactive webcasts’ similar to televised debates (Oprah beware!), only instead of the debate being on television, it is on the Net, and instead of viewers passively watching (or talking to) the television, they are actively taking part in a discussion-cum-English-lesson (over the Net) with people from all over the world. So for any prospective students reading these words, my message to you is: stop talking to your television!

Myngle has given us the most precious tool any teacher could hope for: a window on the world. I look forward to the day when DimDim will give us more features to play around with so that not only will the content of our work be dynamic but also its presentation. I am confident that in the not too distant future we will be able to do unhindered web safaris with our students and make full use of all the content the Internet has to offer. I can’t wait.”

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 11:34 am and is filed under In the spotlight. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.