El
Refectorio or Dining Hall, Santo Domingo Church in Quito, Ecuador - Photo by
Jonathan Acuña
Videoconferencing
in EFL Online Teaching
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Post 324
Though the BlendIt course I took with
the Consultants-E during the month of May (2018) is over, there are still a lot
of ideas whirling in my mind that need to be written down to see them
materialized to be shared in this edublog. One of those ideas is the one we
were developing on the course regarding effective video conferencing sessions
with EFL learners. For the Consultants-E, the key to run them effectively finds
its foundation in two different pillars: learner engagement in an online
session and the platform one has chosen to deliver online synchronous sessions
with students (The Consultants-E, 2018) .
For the Consultants-E (2018), “the key
to running effective video conferencing sessions lies in two areas;” let’s
briefly explore learner engagement. As an online EFL instructor working with 14
low intermediate students at the moment, learner engagement is being created on
the basis of an instructional design model I designed to deal with the content
provided by the LMS we use with our language students since there is no
paper-based course book for the course. Everything we provide learners for
their asynchronous, autonomous and self-regulated work is on the language
program’s LMS.
Well-designed
sessions
|
The instructional model
proposed for the course I have been developing and teaching is linked finds
its basis on the ADDIE Instructional Model. The idea behind it was to have
some sort of backbone that can provide learners with some schema activation,
the use of new lexical items and grammar, a productive task where students
can demonstrate how much they have been learning/understanding of a thematic
unit, and an extension activity that it is taken out of the virtual classroom
(VC) and done independently where students have to face real people and real
situations.
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An
interesting and useful working gathering
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More than a working session,
what my learners are meant to experience when working on the VC is a sort of “gathering”
where they come to practice the language they are working independently and
not to get content explanations from me, their instructor. Material from the
platform is practiced in various and interactive ways in the VC: in the main
room or when working in small groups (or pair work) in breakout rooms, too.
Additionally, the activities and tasks are meant to become useful tools that
they can really use in the real world to be able to be functional within a
given thematic unit.
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A
feeling that the students have learned something
|
Education is also meant to
produce and provide us with pleasant feelings and emotions; hopefully none of
the exercises is going to lead to student frustration in their language
development. At the end of each session or in the transition from one
thematic unit to the next one, we want our learners to leave the VC having
learned something new and useful; something they can apply at work or in
their lives when English needs to be used. We want them to feel fulfilled
after attending class.
|
The
correct management of “technical aspects” of the VC one is using is another
important aspect we online instructors have to keep in our minds. “Knowing how
to manage the technical aspects of
your chosen videoconferencing platform, and how to quickly and effectively deal
with technical issues that can arise” (The Consultants-E, 2018) is a must.
While
interacting with peers in the BlendIt course, I shared with them this list of
tips to be ready for a VC. Though some of the aspects seem to be logical, the
neophyte in online education can discover that they can be a way to “manage the
technical aspects” when one is getting familiar with a platform such as Zoom,
Adobe Connect, and so on.
Content
verification
|
It is always
wise to turn on the laptop and verify that the class content you are going to
be using with your pupils is uploaded and/or ready to be used in class. If
there is a technical problem in terms of content visualization, this is the
moment to make adjustments and changes.
|
Connectivity
and bandwidth verification
|
Verify connectivity
and bandwidth on your laptop. Remember that working on a wi-fi connection
away from the router at home or at the office can cause fluctuations in bandwidth
that can cause minor or major communication breakdowns during a live session.
A bandwidth test can be carried out at http://www.speedtest.net/
quite quickly and reliably.
|
Sound, video, and whiteboard functionalities test
|
Once you are
logged in your VC, do run a sound, video, and whiteboard functionalities
test. You don’t want to get surprises if your students cannot hear you (or
vice versa), or that your camera is not on to greet your students prior the
class’s kick-off, or that the whiteboard cannot be used because any feature
that was meant to be used is not functioning. Sometimes many of these issues
can be solved by closing the VC and reloading the page.
|
Interactivity
verification
|
When uploading
content presentations (usually on PowerPoint for my courses), interactivity
has to be verified. A plain PPT is not that attractive and in my
instructional design, interactivity is one of those elements that reflect a
well-planned session with learners. Checking this interactivity prior
launching the live session is a good idea to prevent any “bad and unexpected
moment.”
|
Breakout
rooms creation
|
If your
session is going to include breakout rooms (BRs), it is wise to have them
ready to be later used during the live session. Creating BRs right on the
spot can be a bit time-consuming depending on the platform one is using, and
if one is rather new in the use of the VC platform, it can be a pain-staking
task. And making students wait due to our lack of platform usage expertise is
something we cannot allow to happen.
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Uploading
material to breakout rooms
|
Once BRs have
been created, do upload material needed to each individual breakout room, so
there can be smooth transition from the main room into the BRs. Having
students in the limbo between being in the main room with no instructor to
being moved into a BR with no activated features is not a good sign of
planning for students.
|
Waiting
for students to show up
|
Now that
everything is prepared, wait for students to start class. In the meantime
while the class is about to start and while waiting for more of them to log
in, chit-chat with learner about their lives, studies, work, or any other
topic that might be a good conversation starter to transition them from their
native language into the target language. This is a good socialization
activity that learners value, too.
|
Time
investment
|
All these
“steps” may take some 10 to 12 minutes before the real class starts. And if
you are new in the online teaching business, it is advisable that you are
logged in some 20 minutes before until all this becomes part of your
preparation routine for you to speed up the process a bit more and get to the
10-12-minute mark.
|
If you thought
that online teaching can be done overnight, this is a good moment to mull over
your initial thoughts. Labelling online teaching as a tough task is not
correct, but getting ready for it can be a short or long learning path for some
instructors. And as any other routine we follow as educators, this will be
easily handled with some training and lots of practice.
References
The Consultants-E. (2018, June 13). Blend It
Online. Retrieved from http://www.train2do.com/:
http://www.train2do.com/moodle/mod/page/view.php?id=56700&inpopup=1
Thursday, June 14, 2018
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