Puerto Salvador Allende, Managua, Nicaragua
- Photo by Jonathan Acuña-Solano
Videoconferencing
in Online Teaching:
Practical
Tasks
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Post 320
I cannot say that working on
videoconferencing rooms is a new task for me, which -in my particular teaching
scenario- has become a routine in the last year or so. However, participating
in an online course through the Consultants-E with Prof. Janet Bianchini has
become an eye opener in several different directions and the videoconferencing
room is one of these paths I must clarify for myself. Knowing the features of a
videoconferencing platform is not enough to host a successful learning session
with students; it does require practical tasks that can bring students together
and that can help build a real community of learning.
Conducting a live session with
learners is a challenging task, but finding the suitable components to make it
meaningful and memorable is much more demanding. Prof. Bianchini proposed a
very practical way of using the polls as part of one’s teaching in class.
However, depending on the system one is using, this feature can be available or
not in different ways.
Polls
in the videoconferencing room
|
|
Possible
uses
|
· Schema
activation activity to set the mood for the topic to be studied
|
· As an
exercise to find out what students know about to direct one’s attention to
areas where they need more coaching or just some review
|
|
· A survey
to know what new piece of knowledge learners are living the session with
|
|
If the
systems have this built-in feature, it has to be used by the instructor to
profit from it in terms of re-directing his/her teaching to foster a smooth
learning process.
Screen sharing is another practical feature
most videoconferencing platform have for online tutors. This characteristic
allows the instructor to think creatively and personalized tasks that can
become interesting, meaningful, and thus memorable for all participants. So,
what can be shared through screen sharing? Basically, anything one can think of
is shareable.
Screen
sharing in the videoconferencing room
|
|
Possible
tasks
|
· Sharing
photos attached to memorable moments in the life of a person to have them
speak about the experiences encased in those pictures
|
· Sharing
texts written by former students to work on editing and sensitize them to
identify mistakes or errors in writing tasks and to find suitable corrections
|
|
· Projecting
reading passages or videos to generate the sharing of ides or to debate
positions regarding the content of both types of media
|
|
And
these are just three basic ideas to deal with speaking, writing, and reading.
What else can be added here to cope with listening tasks? I bet it all depends
on the creativity of the instructor to use the platform’s features.
Breakout rooms is one of the most
versatile features a virtual classroom can have. These pair/group work-oriented
videoconferencing rooms can be used manifold and dependent of the ideas the
instructor has to practice the content for the class.
Breakout
rooms in videoconferencing
|
|
Activities
|
· Pair or group discussions:
Students can be taken out of the main room to deal with a topic or set of
questions and then bring their points of view to the rest of the class.
|
· Role plays and skits:
Learners can be provided with some set of roles for a conversation and let
them build it based on a grammar component or thematic unit that is being
covered in the course.
|
|
· Interviews:
Students can be moved across rooms to discuss questions with different
individuals for them to report to the class later on, like in the “find someone who” speaking task.
|
|
One of
the best things about the breakout rooms is that they allow pupils to socialize
and create the human bond we all expect to materialize in the F2F classroom.
To sum up, videoconferencing in the
online teaching of EFL/ESL/ELF can be highly beneficial for participants and
for the instructor. Here it is listed just a handful of basic ideas that can be
expanded way beyond with the aid of one’s creativity. In the end, it is the
teacher who needs to get into some pensive mood and find ways of using his/her
favorite language production activities in a virtual classroom and its
features. Tasks can become meaningful and memorable and can be conducive to the
creation of the ideal atmosphere for a community of learning in ELT.
Journal
Entry 03 BlendIt Course
Thursday, May 17, 2018
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