Even during distance learning
Personal connections is what makes teaching so rewarding.
Afternoon antics. Last block spontaneous lessons. A question that spurs a classroom discussion. Silly comments, eye-rolling, endless requests to go to the bathroom the minute you begin a lesson.
I sure do miss that. I bet you do too.
These are the things that we teachers sometimes complain about. Much like a happy person complains about a minor distraction, really. But let’s be honest here – we LOVE connecting with our students. And knowing them, knowing their habits, what is coming out of their mouths next or their reactions is priceless.
Now that everything has moved into the online world, we no longer have access to that spontaneity that we took for granted. But we still crave these personal connections. Not to mention – they are an essential part of teaching and learning!
In this age of technology, when the virtual connection is at our fingertips, how do we make it transfer into emotional safety and relief?
In this blog post, I will share five ways that have worked well to continue the “spark” going.
Virtual Office hours
When we first moved to distance teaching and learning, I felt like fish out of water. Questions like: how am I going to continue teaching language? How am I going to help them with core classes? Differentiation NOW means creating 15 different detailed lessons every day, right? What about my newcomers? And others were zooming in my head.
But once our district approved Google Meet it became clear to me: this is the platform that I can use to talk to students in real life and to ensure them I am here for them.
Since I have several classes across several different schools, I have decided to pick a time where I will be there every single day and communicate that to my students.
This is especially important for newcomers. The amount of information is huge out there. One to four attached files per assignment in Google Classroom. Per class. Looooooong directions on what to do and how to do it. It is enough to shut down immediately even for someone who is proficient in English.
That’s why the only communication I did in the beginning was ensuring that they knew how to connect to Google Meet and what time I was expecting them.
Everything else went from there.
Here is what you can do on Google Meet (or Zoom) to keep the personal connections going:
- practice asking and answering questions
- Going over classroom assignments and breaking them down into manageable chunks. I find that even newcomers are able to perform when they actually understand what is asked of them
- Play a game (for example, listening practice – you give them instructions on what to draw, they do it and then you check it together. Language practice and laughter – guaranteed)
Question on Google Classroom
Of course, virtual meetings sound great. However, you will notice that some students connect with you every time while you may have not seen others for weeks.
If you are using Google Classroom, you can utilize the feature “Ask a question”. It is a great way to get to know your students better and keep the personal connections going.
One way I have been using it is to check who was “in class” that day so I can submit attendance.
It took me some time to figure out WHAT to ask but once I realized that this is my chance to continue those personal connections with the kids on a completely different level, I fully embraced it.
The most interesting thing is that you get to know them on such a different level, which is a true gift!
Here are some examples (some of them work better for higher-level students, but you can adjust them to your needs):
- What movies or series are you watching now and would recommend?
- Tell me three things you can do to beat the boredom during this period of virtual learning.
- What is one thing you need help with the most right now?
- This or that question
- Describe something in one word
- What is the first thing you will do when we go back to normal life?
- What makes you happy these days?
- Out of the four language domains – listening, speaking, reading and writing – which one do you feel most comfortable with and why?
For more ideas click here.
You know your students best so you can very much adapt your questions to both your teaching situation and what you want to learn about them as well.
Fun Friday
The other week we all worked so much that I knew that for my own sanity I had to do something. And I knew my students would appreciate that as well!
So we came up with an idea of Fun Friday, where we connect via Google Meet and our purpose is to check-in, chat, and play a short simple game. I have a few favorite speaking games that can be easily adapted to online learning.
This time, I used whiteboard.fi. It is an interactive whiteboard that the students can join (you create a classroom first) with a code. You can ask a question and they draw or write an answer.
For example, draw how you are feeling right now. Because it is on the computer, the drawing is far from perfect. This way it provides room for humor and silliness.
The other question could be “if you had a superpower, what would it be?” They draw their answer and then explain why.
The final question that we did was asking them to draw about their plans for the weekend. It was interesting to see that some drew house projects, others listening to their favorite music, still others just sleeping.
Read-alouds
Quite a few English learners, especially lower proficiency ones, have a difficult time accessing reading materials required in their core classes. Unless they can get a hold of the required book in their first language, it is safe to assume they will not read it.
This is where a read-aloud comes in. It has become a rather common practice for elementary grades. In addition, websites like uniteforliteracy.com and others provide pre-recorded readings of the books.
For older grades, though, it is you that has to do the reading. And while it likely will be impossible to keep up with the class reading pace, there are several benefits to you reading aloud to your students:
- You can anticipate the language structures and vocabulary that they might have troubles with
- you can build background before reading
- You can pause and explain while you are reading
While there are extensions that are helpful – such as Read and Write for Google Chrome – live reading adds to the level of connection we are seeking. In addition, students can ask you questions directly.
So how do you do a read-aloud?
You could give it a trial run by pre-recording yourself reading and uploading it to YouTube. Then you can see if the students watched/listened, how far they got, etc.
You could do a read-aloud during your Google Meet sessions – either during the present office hours or during a time specifically dedicated to it.
Sounds like a lot of work? It can be. But look at it this way:
~ You are learning as you go
~ If you pre-record something, it will be there for future students
~ You can perfect this method by gathering feedback from your students on what works and what doesn’t and adjust accordingly
Flipgrid responses to questions, vocabulary or reading
Remember those questions in Google classroom that I talked about earlier?
The instruction to answer them could be by… speaking!
In Google Classroom, they able to see each other’s responses and that is possible in Flipgrid as well.
You can also use Flipgrid to have them record responses to the reading that you shared with them or to create sentences with the new vocabulary.
And there you have it.
I have also created a list of activities for you to check out. Click here to see them.
What do you do to keep personal connections with your students during online learning? Share in the comments, or inside our Facebook group of like-minded ESL teachers!