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April 12, 2020 12:00 AM

Tips for Remote Language Teaching

Assess understanding of key concepts prior to class:  Evaluate students’ understanding before class, saving class time for activities that students can’t do independently. (Google Forms, Poll Everywhere, Socrative, Triventy)

Build relationships throughout the course:  Relationship-building activities can provide conversation practice while helping students feel more connected to you, peers, and the course itself.

  • Getting-to-Know You Activities
  • Question of the Day
  • Class Openers 
  • Cooperative Learning & Team-building Activities 
  • Writing & Reflection Activities

Create interactive, in-class learning experiences: Plan frequent changes of activity to keep students engaged with one another and the content.

  • Breakout rooms in Zoom
  • Cultural artifact analysis using the think-pair-share model
  • Guest speakers
  • Interactive review games (e.g., Jeopardy, Kahoot)
  • Peer instruction (students prepare and present content)
  • Role plays
  • Service learning (students learn by serving others)
  • Simulations

Devote time to concrete, multisensory, physical activities and encourage social interaction.  Increase the sense of physical presence and spontaneous social interaction with these strategies:

  • Incorporate multisensory methods and materials (e.g., use images and sound effects as prompts for speaking and writing)
  • Invite physical movement (e.g., 30-second energizers, such as culturally authentic fingerplays, dance breaks, stretch breaks, or yoga poses.
  • Use physical objects to signal understanding (e.g., hold up objects when they hear vocab. words, show prepositions using stuffed animals, etc.).
  • Use TPR (from the waist up).

Engage students in sustained inquiry and practice with content throughout the week:  

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