Online teaching 5 of 15: lesson planning and resources

Now this is a link not to be missed: the owner of the website collected advice from 19 online teachers of English about lesson planning and their favourite resources. What has come out of it is a real encyclopedia of online teaching with excellent tips that are not at all self-evident, and much less self-plugging from the participants than you would expect!

A few takeaways for me: experienced online teachers and materials creators think that text doesn’t translate to online well, so we should use more visual imagery. It’s generally harder to keep the students’ attention, so the activities should be shorter and more varied. Some teachers prefer to get input from the students about their needs and interests, but I suppose teaching groups makes it more difficult to do on the fly. Also: there’s a lot of empty space on the students’ screen during a virtual lesson (not when they are on their mobiles, of course), and it should be used well.

Ok, I need to stop retelling the article and just send you over there 🙂