7 Ways to make fun and engaging online lessons

For teachers who are used to the classroom, online teaching is a starting point and a new challenge. Meeting students and giving them lessons through a webcam is not as easy as imagined. A classroom without creativity will bring boredom to students. Online teaching requires some specific skills, such as having students to actively participate in classroom interaction, study hard and maintain interest in English. So how to make online classes interesting?

The question you might need to think about is:  

How to balance teaching your students with fun and engaging teaching activities?

1. Break down the lesson and make it digestible.

Time scheduling is one of the most important part of online teaching jobs. Compared with face-to-face learning courses, you need to break down online courses in a different way.

Long notes and slides with too much text can make students feel tired and bored quickly. Breaking down knowledge and information into small sections allows students to learn and accept better. Also adding different kinds of activities will make the learning time fly by.

2. Adapt in-class activities to the virtual classroom.

Offline classroom activities such as meditation or reading texts are not suitable for online classrooms, because students may use this quiet time to do other things that are impossible, and long articles are not easy to read on the screen.

Therefore, you must adjust classroom activities to adapt to the online teaching model. For example, your students type or speak to answer your questions to make sure they are actually doing things.

Remember, don't let your class be silent for more than three minutes.

3. Make your students feel valued.

Isolation is a factor that makes students lose motivation to study because they may think that missing a class or log out to the classroom to do something more attractive will not be noticed or even worse, online teachers do not care them whatever they do offline.

Here are some suggestions to make you students feel cared in the online classroom.

· Make sure that you know your students’ names and call them on the class, and don’t forget let them know yours.

· Mention and review the knowledge that you have taught in previous lessons and make sure that your students know what you’re teaching now.

· Do some research on your student's hobbies and interests and incorporate them into the courses if possible.

· Regular feedback on students’ work

· Strive to be an optimistic and encouraging teacher

4. Set goals and help your students stick to them.

Setting goals and reminding you students’ learning progress will a great way them to keep learning or maintain a sense of target.

Setting goals for online learners

In order for students to learn about the situation and the background of any activities they are engaged in, you need to set up a clear outline for each lesson, which is also a good way to introduce short-term goals into the classroom.

You can try positive feedback, badges, play games or do other interesting learning activities to reward those students who complete tasks.

Long-term goals are not very effective or practical for engaging online lessons, but try to check the progress of the goals with students and set the next long-term goals together.

Progress checks for online learners

Doing revisions or quizzes on previous topics constantly is an effective way to check short-term progress.

Establishing a system to work with students so that they are able to the process of their long-term goals and keep them going faster.

You can create an achievement page and have students post their achievements and awards on it. You can ask kids to draw about things they've learned, and for teens or adult learners, you can ask them to write study reviews. The page will be filled with reminders of students' moments of success and pride as time goes by.

5. Use technology to your advantage!

Online teaching not only brings challenges, but also brings a lot of powerful electronic tools to teachers. Discussion boards, pointers, virtual games, text editors, drawing tools, file editors, breakout rooms, or screen sharing tools can all make your class more interesting and keep your students’ attention. Of course, you must first understand how these virtual tools are used and spend time on introducing them to students so that they will feel confident when using them. You can also think about using them to motivate your students to study hard, like using them as a reward.

6. Present your best (online) self.

How to look clean and confident is a question every online teacher must consider. A good image will also earn you the respect of your students. But online teachers may need to address this issue a little differently than today's teachers. Compared with offline teachers, online teachers may need different approaches to deal with this problem.

Visuals

Adjust your camera and position until you can be clearly seen by the students. The fact that students can see your face means they know if you're paying attention and listening to them. Be patient, even if the process can get a little boring. In addition, your visual materials must be of high quality, such as clear and concise slides and high-definition videos.

Audio

A note-taking class is equivalent to boring and boring. Introducing new activities or changing the rhythm of your class by changing the tone and manner of your speech will make the class alive. For example, tell stories emotionally, give instructions seriously, and praise loudly, even imitating the voices of animated characters.

Moreover, make sure you plan to use any audio clips of good quality.

Finally, it is obvious that your students will not hesitate to cut off the Internet if your online classroom is not connected to a reliable Internet.

7. Bring fun into the classroom.

Finding ways to motivate students can effectively involve online students in classroom activities, which is not much different from offline classrooms. The best media to work in real life, can also be used in an online environment.

Talk about a specific topic, such as music and sports which connect with what you do in real life. Dare to try different things and share them with your students until they also find something that suits them.

Give them some time to take a break, and you can see the difference!

Find more how to make class interactive when teaching online.