Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
Six months ago I switched to tutoring English online overnight. For years, I have travelled to my students’ homes and sat in their kitchens and dining rooms as we worked together on poetry, Shakespeare, creative writing or wherever they needed extra help. I have always preferred speaking to people face to face, in all my jobs. So much is communicated through posture and body language, and when you are sitting in the same room you experience the same distractions and environment.
But back in March we had no choice, did we? I am fortunate to be in a line of work that could adapt to Zoom, so that’s what we did. How has it turned out?
Pros
One of the first things I noticed was that I didn’t have to travel. Well, that was partly the point of moving to Zoom; we could all stay at home. As well as saving time, it’s meant that I am in my office while I am teaching, so if I want a book or other resource that I hadn’t anticipated needing, it’s right there.
Of course, importantly, communicating online is safe. I stopped visiting students in their houses before lockdown was announced because I could see that going from one house to another, sitting with one student after another, was not the right way to work if there was an alternative. And there was.
Teaching on Zoom also provided some benefits that I hadn’t thought of before I started doing it. For example, I can share my screen so that both my student and I can look at a document, read a text or watch a video. That’s a real plus for them; they don’t have to spend an hour watching me talk and ask them questions!
Cons
I hadn’t realised how intense and exhausting Zoom sessions would be. I found that we could cover much more in an online session than we would face to face, but that both the student and I would be flagging by the end. There’s a tendency to keep talking when you’re online, whereas if you’re sitting at a table with someone there are periods of silence while someone looks for a page in a book, fiddles with some paper or has a drink of water. Or says hello to the cat. I realised I had to build in some breaks and some informal chatting to make the online sessions more similar to in-person ones.
Of course there are times when the wifi signal dips and then sometimes a parent or older sibling has to be called to sort things out. Or a charging cable is needed. But we’ve all become very used to this technology and I haven’t found my students stressed by any of this.
It can be harder for students, especially younger ones, to focus for a whole hour when they are, in fact, sitting alone with a laptop or tablet after a long school day. If there is a human adult sitting at the table next to them, on the other hand, it tends to keep them alert! I break up the sessions into manageable chunks and build in lots of variety and interaction to keep things interesting.
Finally, there is one unexpected aspect of teaching on Zoom that is quite amusing and not too much of a problem. Some of my younger students forget that it helps me to see their face while we are talking. Often, they incline their head to write something and then stay sitting like that. I can then see only the top of their head! This can become a problem if the audio is muffled and I have to ask them to look up!
Verdict
I still prefer communicating in real life and I think that’s something we’ve all talked about in the past few months. I am looking forward, one day, to being able to visit my students at home, talk to their parents, siblings and pets and look at books, texts and homework together. But there are advantages to teaching online and I hope that I will continue to work this way as well. It allows me to work with students who don’t live near me and to be more flexible and innovative.
What is your experience of switching to online teaching, learning or working? Let me know in the comments.
