Teaching English online

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ronirose

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Nov 2, 2011
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Hi,

does anyone here have any experience of doing demo lessons for online students who you have never taught before? What is the best strategy for doing this?
 

5jj

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The only time I did something vaguely similar to that (demonstration lesson by phone), I discussed the student's level and the topic of the lesson with him beforehand, and then faxed him the materials I would be using. The pre-lesson discussion should be easier for you, thanks to the internet, but I would strongly advise you not to attempt a lesson cold.
 

Tdol

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Do you know their level, needs, etc? If not, then I would start by doing that, and have some demo materials to hand for various levels that you could show them as examples of the kinds of things you could cover with them. But without knowing these things, I think it would be extremely difficult to do a demo.
 

English Lee

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Jun 3, 2009
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I echo the above. A needs analysis is very important. Another thing to consider is, do you want to have language assessment built around grammatical knowledge or a more open approach where you allow the student to talk freely?

A 15-minute open demo might consist of:

  • Introductions
  • Finding out what the student's needs are (English for work, social activities, university etc)
  • Prior experience of learning English
  • Get them to talk about their home town and family. This part allows you to explore how detailed they can be when talking about something familiar.
  • You could ask them what they did this morning, talk about routines and future plans. Those aspects should cover past present and future.
 

Tdol

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Building a decent needs analysis and assessment would be a sound start and would work for all cases.
 
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