Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi,

I have a new website that I'm building that will allow people in the USA to teach English to Japanese people using the Internet. The concept is simple: you register and schedule a class, students sign up for the class, you teach the class online and get paid via paypal.

Everything from scheduling to payment is handled online automatically and the classes are taught using Flash technology so you don't have to download any software. The video conferencing technology is similar to youtube except that it's live and not pre-recorded. All a teacher needs to have to participate is a webcam.

Right now I'm accepting applications from teachers and I hope to start testing the site with a beta program within the next month.

The name of the site is Language Tunnel.
URL: http://www.languagetunnel.com
User's Guide: http://wiki.languagetunnel.com

Hi Alex,

This sounds like a great idea and I know that English First are already selling and similar scheme supported with on-line and downloadable resources.

The following may sound a little harsh, but the subject of on-line teaching opens a whole new can of worms from an administrative point of view, especially since you´re offering a "live" service on an unreliable platform.

I´m interested in:

What kind of resources you´d expect your teachers to use - Most traditional schools have a library of photocopiable materials and activities and of course provide each student with a coursebook. Of course, there´s no need to do this when you´re working on line - students can look up web pages or download what they need for each lesson, but somebody has to pool together the materials and organise them so that they can be used effectively.

How you´d deal with interruptions and breakdowns in the Internet connections while a class is in progress. Would you offer compensation? Would you offer supplementary classes? If one or two students lose their connection but the others don´t, what would you do?

I guess similar problems arise with traditional schools and you´d have to determine how much responsibility each party has for any forseeable problem and what steps you´d take to ensure that everyone is left happy.

What kind of support and training you could offer to experienced teachers who want to try on-line teaching - it´s very different to class room teaching and we´d need to adapt to this and learn new tecniques and ways of working.

Alex_NYC wrote:Hi,

I have a new website that I'm building that will allow people in the USA to teach English to Japanese people using the Internet. The concept is simple: you register and schedule a class, students sign up for the class, you teach the class online and get paid via paypal.

Everything from scheduling to payment is handled online automatically and the classes are taught using Flash technology so you don't have to download any software. The video conferencing technology is similar to youtube except that it's live and not pre-recorded. All a teacher needs to have to participate is a webcam.

Right now I'm accepting applications from teachers and I hope to start testing the site with a beta program within the next month.

The name of the site is Language Tunnel.
URL: http://www.languagetunnel.com
User's Guide: http://wiki.languagetunnel.com

Hi Alex your concept is good but the site has been down for a couple days...