I don't know about you, but when my college announced that we had to work from home, I thought it would only be for a couple weeks, maybe a month. I guess that shows you how clueless I was about this whole Corvid-19 thing! But I don't think I'm alone in this. We live in strange times, and a lot of people don't have "answers" or know what's going to happen. These are uncertain times, for sure! Emergency Online Teaching Back in March, the English department at my school did what they called "emergency online teaching." Thankfully, I wasn't teaching a class at the time when everything "went down," but I saw what it did to these students that had signed up for in-person classes and were suddenly thrust into online environments. In short, they panicked. They struggled. They dropped out. (Super sad!) Same for a lot of teachers, too, though. They over corrected, tried to keep the same in-person lesson plans and activities, and struggled to figure out video conferencing and other essential technology that they hadn't been required to learn before all of this. When I was tutoring and students complained about all the changes in their syllabus and flip-flopping of assignments in their (now) online classes, I reminded them to have patience and told them, "we're all in this together!" We pulled through this "emergency online teaching" somehow and finished up the Spring semester. Yay! High Hopes I think we all had high-hopes of returning to campus this Fall. (I know I did!) But with a spike in Covid-19 cases in my state, many of the departments at my college have decided to stay online for the Fall semester, just in case. There's rumor that we'll be offering some in-person services, like cashiers, financial aid, etc. But the English department says they're having us stay home, and our tutoring center said the same thing. To quote my English department chair, "we're no longer responding to emergency online teaching." Yes, there are still learning curves to tackle and added training we need in order to teach effectively online. (FYI: I completed the first of three accreditations for teaching online during Spring break. I had a feeling to do it!) But we've (hopefully!) learned from our crash course in moving everything online in Spring. Now we can take that knowledge (as well as other training) and make Fall online even better! Our Summer semester, by the way, has been online. I didn't get a class to teach, but I'm tutoring, and I'm noticing that students are (also) getting the hang of this online-stuff, including interacting with classmates and instructors via video conferencing. What Fall looks like at my college Below is an image of our learning options we're providing at our college this Fall. I haven't heard of any departments doing in-person or hybrid. I suppose those would be reserved for subjects that require a lab (like Chemistry, for example), or hands-on learning (like auto-mechanics). The English department (which includes ESL!) is only doing Live-Online and Online. To teach or not to teach? Last week, I was offered to teach a Live-Online ESL, level 1 writing course this Fall semester. I told them I had to think about it. Was I ready to do this? I'd learned a lot from the tutoring aspect, but could I handle an online class? A live-online, no less!? It would probably be easier cheering my colleagues from the sidelines, wouldn't it? I mean, online tutoring is my jam, not online teaching... in real-time? I've taken online classes, but they were not for the Live-Online format. What would that even look like? I told my husband that if I ever taught a class during this pandemic, online, I'd want to do it asynchronously (online, your time). How can I be certain that my students would always have access to wifi and/or be available to attend a class at a specific time? Covid-19 has created a lot of uncertainty. What if a student loses their job and/or has to get a new one and their schedule changes? What if they thought that time would work because their kids were planning to go back to school but now they can't do that time anymore because they need to home school their kids? It's a level 1, though. Would they be able to navigate an online course without having the chance to meet with me via video conferencing at least twice a week? Maybe they need the interactions with their peers. Actually, now that I think about it, they will! If they're like me, they'll be starving for human connections while they learn and grow. If we can't get it in-person, I suppose the Live-Online option is the next best option. Besides, these level 1 students will want to ask questions, and sometimes they're often more comfortable speaking in real-time (where they can use hand motions, etc) than writing a formal email to an instructor. Anyway, long story short (too late!) I accepted the teaching gig! Coming to a theater near you...
So stay tuned! I'm planning on giving a play-by-play of my first-time teaching a Live-Online ESL class. It's been a while since I've taught level 1 students, so that will make it doubly adventurous. ha ha! Level 1 ESL students are sweethearts! (I work with them in tutoring, so I know that hasn't changed since the last time I taught level 1!) They often have sincere motivations to learn for the sake of learning and usually make excellent improvements throughout the semester. Man, I love working with ESL students. I can't wait to meet them!
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