Bonjour à tous! J'espère que tout est bien :)
Today we are not going to focus exclusively on ELT (English Language Teaching) but on other teaching tools we use in other languages. Today, I want to talk about some practices I took while taking my FLE modules (Français Langue Étrangère) last spring: la télécollaboration (telecollaboration). This is a brand new way of teaching, and very interesting to take if you're still on teaching training. Let me
Qu'est-ce que c'est? - What is it?
Le projet de télécollaboration or simply, télécollaboration is a project for teaching French (or any other languages) online. This project involves teaching students from all over the world via YouTube, wikis or Google. You will have an online class together with your other physical classes.
Qu'est-ce qu'on fait? - What do we do?
As our students come from different parts of the world, it's very hard to arrange a meet-up altogether. What we do is contact them via wikis and social media, asking them to do several tasks (e.g. storytelling to practise past tenses). These tasks can be individual or collaborative. We give them a deadline, and we offer them an extra help through social forums. In addition, we arrange an online meeting to solve problems, give instructions and check how are they going through the course. This online meeting is also helpful for checking our students' oral skills, as well as encouraging them to speak in the target language.
Où est-ce qu'on le fait? - Where do we do it?
As we have commented previously, this course is purely online. You just need a PC, a laptop, a tablet... or your own phone. Now you can reach Internet no matter where you are! Just look for info about this type of courses and request to join a group, the rest is easy.
If you're a teacher, though, you can create your own course with some tools we'll describe you below (some of them are familiar to you already).
Quand est-ce qu'on peut le faire? - When can we do it?
There's no restricted timing to plan your courses. You can open and close your courses anytime. However, during the course, teachers are supposed to contact their students weekly or monthly. If not, your students will lose appeal and motivation to follow the course.
Pourquoi est-ce qu'on devrait le faire? - Why should we do it?
Because it's free, and ready to use anytime, anywhere. Télécollaboration is a great opportunity to show your teaching skills all over the world. It opens up to thousands of opportunities in the world. Besides, students joining these courses tend to be motivated to learn a language, so this is an extra reason to start your course now! No bosses, just you and your own rules. Shall we start then?
Comment est-ce qu'on le fait? - How do we do it?
In order to make all this happen, we will need several tools to work with our students:
- Wikis/Moodle: This will always be your welcome page to your students. Here they'll see the different units to study, their tasks, their homework and their forums. Wikis and/orMoodle/Blackboard are the perfect servers to plan their lessons. You can post documents, PDFs, online presentations, online instructions or every source to give tips to your students. You can give them a deadline (that's highly recommended, as telecollaboration is designed as a weekly project). Students will have to post all their work on these platforms. In addition, they can discuss their work through forums and collaborative documents. Wikis/Moodle offers us an open window of possibilities - it's up to the teachers to post creative stuff to their students!
- Google Drive: When it comes to collaborative tasks, Google Drive is set to be one of the best. Students can write and edit the others' work through collaborative forms. They can share their work to the teacher by using Google accounts. This Google cloud is one of the quickest and most effective ones online - better give it a try then.
- Skype/FaceTime/Google Hangouts: This tool is compulsory to arrange social meetings online (remember that every student must attend these meetings). These three servers offer us unlimited free international calls, so it's always good to communicate to our students through them. However, there can be several problems concerning online calls:
- 1. Skype only allows one person per call (if you want to make it a video call). If you want to add more members to your conversation, they'll ask you to go Premium. If you decline their offer, you will hear your students, but you won't be able to see them. That is a big drawback for a teacher, as we want to identify and get to know our students (non-verbal language can be sometimes useful to assess your students, their problems and their needs).
- FaceTime can only be used by Mac users. If some of your students don't have a Mac/iPhone/iPad, you'll have a big problem to contact them
- Our main alternative then relies on Google Hangouts. This tool allows you to have multiple-member chats and online video calls. This is quick and handy when it comes to solving problems to your students. Students will have to get a Google account to start Hangouts though (i.e. Gmail, Google+, YouTube). If not, they won't be able to join the conversation. Despite that, Google Hangouts is the most used tool for telecollaboration sessions, as it's the easiest one to use from these three options. Here I post you one of my telecollaboration sessions last April:
- DISCLAIMER: This course is in French, as it was the purpose of this teaching practice.
- YouTube: Video browser aside, YouTube can help us organise and plan our Hangouts. YouTube will automatically record and post our online sessions to our channel. We can then post this later on our Wiki page. This can be also viewed by the entire online community, as it's saved in our online, public account. This is definitely a good way to get other people's attention and join our group.
Phew! I feel I've talked too much in this entry... Now, as always, it's time for you to investigate. There are thousands of online courses waiting for you to see, both official (universities) and particular (online teachers). What are you waiting for?
See you soon! And remember, enjoy teaching!
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