Hi Matty,
A few days ago, I recieved the email copied into the next paragraph. I asked the writer's permisson to include it in a post, though, at the time, I was not sure where it would fit in. As a partial reply to Matty's post, I will copy it here with my response.
"I am a private teacher of English from Spain and I am thinking about starting to teach online both English and Spanish but I don't know how to start. I have got Skype, MSN and AOL, which is the best? I don't know how to design lessons for online students, what are the more important skills and how would you teach them? I'm sorry to bother you but if you could advice me on that I would appreciate it a lot!"
I replied as follows:
What a coincidence! I am homeschooling my daughter, who is a high school senior. One of her tasks today is to find an online Spanish tutor. I asked her to go to
www.language-school-teacher.com and look over the profiles of the teachers on that site and pick a few to contact. That would probably be a good place for you to start, too. I suggest that before you start advertising yourself, you educate yourself on the following:
How to design a curriculum which will satisfy the needs and wants of parents, students, and the students' classroom Spanish teachers.
How to make effective use of the Spanish-teaching websites.
How and what other Spanish language teachers are teaching and how they teach.
What books are used in classrooms and the strengths and weakness of each.
The current curricula in the Spanish language classrooms of the students to whom you will teach.
The requirements of the AP Spanish test in the US - a big market.
Professional organizations of Spanish teachers and their activities.
How to detrmine what to charge for your services and how to get paid.
I would be happy to talk to you about this on MSN or Skype. I have college classes starting at 11am my time (GMT-5), and I teach in the mornings between 4am and 10am, with breaks in between. Perhaps we could talk in the morning between the breaks.
Let me know what you think. Perhaps you and my daughter could talk, too, and she could tell you what she is looking for in a Spanish teacher. There is no doubt that there is a market for Spanish teaching online - you just need to be prepared from an instructional and technological standpoint, and then to market yourself well.
The offer stands for anyone who is interested in online teaching.
RE matty's questions about comminication vs educating, I would offer the following: you need to be able to communicate to educate and VOIP services give us that opportunity. While it is true that there many be limitations on the quality of the video (depending on the service and your modem speeds), you can send files by email - not just on the VOIP service. Additionally, you can use desktop sharing, by which you and your student(s) can go to websites together and read, collect info (which you can write down on the whiteboard). Your student can make mini audio recordings, and then save them, and you can both upload and download video content from YouTube.
I have been teaching with a webcam for a couple of years, and it is my experience that this mode of instructional delivery is as good as, if not better than live-and-in-person. An example of how a lesson looks can be seen from a lesson I recently had with a 12-year old. In the course of our studies, we had discussed Hurricane Katina as it took place, as well as its aftermath. We looked at articles and watched videos on the CNN website. Since the Coriolis Effect was a new science concept for the student, we looked at some great animations of this physical phenomenon, and use the whiteboard to draw diagrams and list causes of hurricanes. We looked at maps of the area affected by the huricanne and talked about the plight of the people who lived there. Not long after the huricanne, Aaron Neville's cover of Louisianna came out, so we listened to the song, which the student liked, and he practiced singing it for a week or so. Maybe two months ago, I came across the website of an old New Orleans musician friend of mine, Henry Butler, and my student and I went over there and listened to Herny's cover of the song that starts off,"There's a place for us..." as we watched a slide show of Henry's destroyed house. We also listened to a little more music, with Butler's Boogie, and then over to Wikipedia to read up on Boogie Woogie.
I use a textbook with each of my students, but we spice up the lessons with other studies and info too. Some days we don't even open the book, and instead, do a few lesson's on Pascal's Triangle, or Chinese etymology. He also writes pieces on Korean history and soccer, and has gotten 1,500 views on what he has posted to a forum in just two months! Posting on forums is both motivating and empowering. One day he decided to write his version of novice English - a really silly piece - I admit - and posted it. He was much chagrined to find that 30 people had viewed his post over the weekend, and was very anxious to re-establish his nick - leecue - as an excellent writer of English and a generally knowlegdeble person - by writing a looooong piece about the unluckiest soceer player in the world - which he translated into a dependent clause followed by a comma exercise. He had originally found the info in Korean on
www.naver.com.
In short, these online lessons light up my life - a good thing too, since we getstarted way before the sun comes up here in North Carolina. It is true that sometimes we lose the video - or it freezes - ot we lose the audio - but those times are good opportunities to play 20 questions or some other writing game, or to go on scavenger hunts for information such as "Who is the faster runner in the world?' Naturally, we run into questions of "For what distance?" and "according to whom?" - but that is part of English instruction - it just doesn't feel like it.
BTW - go over to
www.Tobyscafe.com He has renamed it, but you can use the old name to get there. He has recently started a site to help folks who are interested in online teaching.
Good luck,
Kathy Felts
[email protected]
