Ideas for teaching classes via Skype

[jesl]

Hi all,

I have just been contacted to teach a one on one class, one on one with a student for six months, two hours each class. But they want to do the class by Skype. I am interested to give this a shot but not sure what to expect and what to prepare for the student. I can only imagine it will be different than teaching face to face. I have tried once before but ran out of conversation after about 40 minutes. So I have been thinking about some things that I do.

Question and answer, ask questions let the student answer and corect them. And then reverse and let them see if they can understand my answers.

Another idea would be to read a book or other article and correct them as they read.

Can repeat some vocabulary

They are not interested in grammer lessons or writing. They want to listen and speak as their job is working at a hospital and they need to be able to understand patients. So I have considered some role play also.

I have searched online for materials or ideas but there seems to be little avaialble which surprises me with the internet age here.

If anyone has any suggestions for materials to use or useful websites for me to look at please do so! Thank you so much!

[Sally Olsen]

Just a short dialogue but it looks like there are other websites suggested.
http://help.berberber.com/forum71/64548 ... rdiac.html

[jesl]

Thank you for this, the only thing thier is the first post in English, and the only website listed is one in Polish. To be honest he is not looking for medical vocabulary persay, he just wants to improve his listening and speaking whatever way he can, medical stuff specific is not really his interest, though maybe helpful.

I will look though this website to see what else is there. Thanks for sharing.

[Luke Zimmermann]

I have never done this before but i can't see why you wouldn't be able to just use a textbook. As long as your student can get the same book, you should be able to do most of the work together. Trying to have a conversation lesson for 2 hours without a textbook of some sort is pretty challenging as it is, even face to face.

[jesl]

The student does not want to use a text book and neither do I. Though supplimenting the class with some textbook material probably would be ok. Mostly they need listening and speaking so a text book may not really be the answer. They don't really like that idea but, I will look around and see if I can find something suitable, any other ideas are welcome.

[Luke Zimmermann]

If I were you, I'd suggest to make it 2 lessons of 1 hour each. I think 2 hours is way too long.

Anyway, I just thought you might find some good listening and other exercises on my favourite ESL website: agendaweb.org.

Good luck

[jesl]

Oh what a treasuretrove of information, thank you! I like that site already after only looking at the first page, I think it will be very useful for more than just this class, thank you.

[matbury]

Here's an idea:

How about playing hypochondriac? You could look up some stuff on the net (I bet hypochondriacs have their own forums!) and/or get a medical dictionary and ask your student to treat you. You could have some interesting/fun dialogues.

[teacher-simon]

I may be a bit late for this thread, but just wanted to comment on using Skype for teaching. I've used it a fair bit with one student before and found it to be a really great method for teaching. When the student's level is a little lower, its really useful to be able to type what you're saying for their reference, as well as send them links to different sites you may be talking about.

In regards to a medical practitioner, generally I don't think you would've needed a lot of materials, more likely and handful of concepts and ideas to discuss. I've taught a couple of doctors and they simply wanted to talk just for the practice. Seemed to be about almost anything, as long as it was interesting.

If they are really putting on a lot of pressure to progress quickly, you could jot down any new words and phrases you discussed during the lesson and then email them a list of new words at the end of each class.