TeachingEnglish
Teaching English through Skype
Submitted by Isasan on 24 January, 2011 - 19:35
Hello Everyone,
Have you ever taught English through Skype? If so, how did you go about it? Any ideas? I’ve been offered a job to teach English through Skype and I don’t really know how to do it. I wouldn’t like the lessons to be boring or useless.
Thank you very much in advance,
Take care,
Isasan
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Hello Isasan
I currently teach two pupils one-to-one via Skype, and, although I say so myself, I don't think the lessons are boring or useless. My two students are happy.
I presume you have a webcam. I think that's important. Ideally the student should have one, too. I teach two very advanced students -- one wants conversation, and the other wants written English practice. You wouldn't think that Skype was the ideal medium for teaching writing, but it works very well. I set written work to be done during the week, he emails it to me in advance and we discuss it over Skype in our one-hour lesson. If, as often happens, a grammatical point arises from his errors - eg the use of the apostrophe - I use lesson time to teach that.
There are a few points to be aware of when teaching with Skype.
1. How will you be paid? If it is a private arrangement with a student from another country, then Paypal is probably best. I work for a language school. The school sends me the students and the school pays me. No doubt I could get more money by finding my own students, but at least this way I don't have to worry about being paid by individual students. I also get paid if the student cancels at short notice. It would probably be best to bring up this matter in a written contract you draw up between you and your student before you start teaching.
2. Is your own computer reliable, and is the internet reliable where you live? Same goes for your student, of course. I have had no problems with technology, I must say, except for just after Christmas when there was a major Skype outage for a couple of days. Still, that's just one of those things. I don't think you should rely on Skype teaching for your income, however, as things can and do go wrong.
3. You need to be be a lot more organised when teaching with Skype. You must email in advance the material you intend to use. If you set homework you must do so very soon after the lesson in order to give the student time to complete it before the next lesson. You must have everything within easy reach during the lesson, so you do not have to leave your seat as you can't continue the lesson if you are at the other side of the room searching for things.
4. You will probably end up spending more time on lesson preparation unless your student can easily buy the textbook you recommend and you work from that. Your student's hardware may determine what activities you do; no point sending lots of colour pictures if he/she doesn't have a decent printer.
5. My students already speak excellent English, so I do not specifically concentrate on pronunciation. The sound quality on Skype is not always great, and I occasionally have difficulty knowing whether the student has said 'known' or 'knowing' etc, so it could get frustrating if I kept having to ask the student to repeat, or if they couldn't hear the correct version. This means that using Skype for teaching more basic English might pose more problems.
I hope this information helps.
This sounds like another interesting way to engage in e-learning and establish online teacher-student or student-student interactions. Similar ideas have included blogs and other social networks like Facebook or Twitter. The added advantage of Skype is the spoken element. You can have the teacher or another student communicating both on the phone and in writing to focus on words or when there is a misunderstanding. The webcam can bring a visual element to it and make it more "human".You can even have more than two students talking at the same time with the group chat mode.
They'll need to have friends or another class to communicate with in English, at the same level and time as yours and with access to computers and Skype. Or students could do it in their own time from home. With minors, you'll need to supervise this closely and make sure they're communicating with reliable e-pals. You'll also need written permission from their parents. The most important thing is to give them a task graded at the students' level, preferably a worksheet which they could work through together, to make sure there is a communicative goal/learning outcome and the conversation doesn't dry up or is way too hard or too easy.
Hi Isasan
We adapted our offline face to face materials for use with Skype because the way we teach suited it perfectly. Last year I did some case studies and posted them online for anyone to read and listen to.
The results were quite extraordinary causing Prof Stephen Krashen to listen and then post "Remarkable...a major contribution to what we know works".
The 'before and after'edits are at the top but if you scroll down you'll find all of the data from every session so you can track the learners' progress in huge detail.
http://languagesoutthere.podomatic.com/
We have a teachers Facebook group and an active FB fan page. We sell our materials to teachers to use online with Skype and in virtual classrooms or face to face.
Hope you find this informative and useful.
Jason
Hi,
I live in Argentina and I'd really want to know how I have to do to teach via the Internet, through skype for example or hotmailor yahoo. I have the camera, but how a cntract is arranged if it is not possible to sign it or even the publicity to be known as a teacher.
hello, i m a student of international relations, and i m curious abt to learn english plz if u possibily help me i will b very gretefull thank u.
Marisa, set up a Skype account, then a Paypal account. Both are free.
You can invoice and reecieve payments directly to pay. You teach when they have paid you.
Use some materials designed for the purpose (like ours) so you don't have to spend hours splanning all the time and can give students your full communicative powers and guide them and support them.
You can even sell them our student materials and earn extra money or teach them in a virtual classroom like this (free again or a small annual fee for your own branded classroom):
http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/210180-English-Out-There-Intermediate-...
It's easy and there is nothing stopping you. Put some free ads on Craigslist or other similar sites ior join TeachStreet.com or some free language exchanges like Livemocha.com and Italki.com to get students.
Does that help?
Shehzad, try our student self-study courses and if you need help teachers will be happy to follow the lessons with you using Skype or a virtual classroom. At the end of each lesson you contact some of your Facebook friends who speak English and then call them on skype to do the speaking practice. very easy, no new/complicated applications to learn. Millions use PDF, MP3, Facebook and Skype!
Hi,
Thanks a lot for your help, yes your info about it was very useful for me, but what I need now is just to feel myself confident to start. First thing I will do is to find a place here, if it's possible, to open a penpal account as you said. Then, publicity is the most difficult I think. I know livemoch and englishtown, but how do you mean to do publicity there?
I don't want to disturb you so much, but I have another question, How do I know, you in this case, answered my quest, because I didn't receive an e-mail or something which tells me someone replied to me. Sorry but as you can see I'm new here. Ah!! I think I saw it now, I marked below!
Thanks again for all your help.
All the best!
Hi Marisa, it's just really about getting yoursself out there...no pun intended! :-)
Create profiles on italki.com, livemocha.com, skypeprof.com and just google for sites/platforms and introduce yourself, get some testimonials from students, even do some before and after audio case studies like I do, so people can hear your students improve.
Ads on Craigslist and local listings, sites that sell courses etc.
Use Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to send out info about yourself and your teaching.
Did that help?
If you fancy a chat, just skype me at: jasonoutthere and say it is you in the contact request.
Cheers
Jason
In reply to the original question, I’d like to second the Virtual Linguist’s post, and especially her second and third points, which we find are the cause of the vast majority of beginner problems.
One quick tip is to avoid wifi connections and always stick to a cable – even though they are 99% stable, it’s that 1% that can really cause problems and confusion, taking both your and the student’s mind off the lessons and disrupting everything.
HTH,
Alex