A Platform for English Teachers: Easy Distance Learning
Both tutors and general school teachers are actively moving to online work, because that is what modern life demands. Distance learning has many advantages, but for teachers it can be a real test.
Besides having to use various platforms for video calls with students, teachers often have to change the curriculum and its content, adapting materials to the new format. A separate task for today’s English teacher is creating homework that makes it possible to assess students’ real knowledge and effort. Technical difficulties also often get in the way of successful learning. Specialized platforms for English teachers help cope with all these problems, and today we will tell you what they contain and how they work.
Contents
1. The difficulties English teachers face in distance learning
2. Programs that help teachers organize online learning
3. Features you can use on a platform for English teachers
3.1. Interactive textbooks
3.2. An online calendar
3.3. Automatic test checking
3.4. A student attendance log
3.5. Lesson preparation
4. How to choose the best website for English teachers
The difficulties English teachers face in distance learning
Let’s take a closer look at the new tasks teachers face because of the move to online learning:
- Finding a program for video calls. You can use Skype, Google Meet, Zoom or even Facebook for this, but not all of these programs allow group calls, and you usually have to pay for advanced features. These platforms and programs also make it harder for English teachers to show learning materials, so they have to give students links to presentations created on another site.
- Sending messages about the lesson schedule and homework. Although an English teacher’s main teaching platform may be Zoom, for communicating with students outside class teachers usually create chats in Viber or Telegram. At first glance this looks quite convenient, but in practice it is much more comfortable to study and communicate inside one program or website. Besides, students can get confused about lesson dates, so the teacher has to add them to a separate calendar, which also takes time.
- Sharing the computer screen or presentations during lessons. A big difficulty for English teachers who teach online through Skype and similar programs is sending learning materials to students or showing them on screen. Not every platform lets you see students’ faces and show infographics or videos at the same time.
- Writing an English curriculum specifically for online lessons. Many teachers are used to creating printed handouts that students work with on their own and in groups. With the move to distance learning and online platforms for English teachers, it became necessary to find new ways of teaching and interactive textbooks to replace printed ones.
- Checking homework. When working with students remotely, a teacher cannot always tell whether a student really prepares their homework well or simply uses an online dictionary. So there was a need for a new format of homework and ways of checking it that would be effective and save the teacher’s working time.
Platforms for school English teachers make learning much more interesting for students
Of course, we have listed only the most general problems English teachers face. There are many other difficulties caused by the teacher’s own circumstances (for example, older age) or by students who do not want to study. In any case, websites for English teachers that combine all the features a teacher needs and contain ready-made learning materials help reduce the teacher’s workload and organize distance learning successfully.
Programs that help teachers organize online learning
At the core of any platform for teachers is an LMS, a learning management system. The main advantage of such programs is the ability to organize all learning materials, communicate with students and run the online lessons themselves on one website. In other words, the teacher and students need only one link to get into a convenient and clear learning space, whereas before it took a dozen links and several chats in different messengers.
Another advantage of platforms for English teachers is that they are developed specifically for teaching a foreign language. A teacher who wants to use such a program only needs to make a few settings, such as entering lesson times, adding their students or grouping them into classes or groups. If the platform has no interactive textbook, or it does not quite match the school’s curriculum, the teacher can also upload their own teaching materials to the site for students to use. Again, all learning material ends up on one platform, so the teacher does not need to upload separate videos or send links to a site with an interesting news story students should read before the next lesson. Last but not least, websites for English teachers have a built-in video calling program. If the teacher works with a whole class, they can put students into one group and call everyone at once, which also saves a lot of time.
Features you can use on a platform for English teachers
Every platform has its own features, so you need to choose very carefully, and not only based on reviews (we describe some criteria in the last section). First of all, these features relate to the site’s content and the functions available to teachers. We list the most important ones that will definitely come in handy for English teachers.
Interactive textbooks
These are textbooks with a convenient structure that, besides the usual grammar and vocabulary materials, can contain various videos, audio, pictures, infographics, tables, diagrams and word lists with playable pronunciation. With access to such a textbook, a teacher can forget about constantly searching for and choosing visual and interactive materials for every lesson and class.
But the most convenient thing about interactive textbooks on websites for English teachers is that they are built on a single program and divided by level. So if your students are studying at A2 level, you simply open the right textbook and teach from it: the topics, words and phrases have already been chosen by experienced methodologists.
Note that platforms for English teachers usually have two access formats: one lets you use only the program, and the other includes textbooks too. So if you do not need interactive textbooks, you simply choose the subscription you need and do not waste money.
An online calendar
Teachers who work with a large number of students, and perhaps also tutor on the side, often find it hard to plan their working time. A program for teachers with a convenient built-in calendar helps solve this problem too. The teacher can enter all their lessons in it, while each student sees only the dates and times of their own lessons.
Automatic test checking
A really great platform for today’s English teacher should have a feature for creating tests and automatically checking students’ results. Tests can be used as homework or as a progress check for a lesson, month or term. Most importantly, along with the student’s result, the teacher can see exactly which questions they answered incorrectly, so they can give that topic more attention later and fill the knowledge gap.
Schoolchildren also love online tests, because they can be done quickly and they do not have to write tasks by hand. This form of assessment also often helps students remember new words, phrases or grammar rules, because they immediately see where they made a mistake and what the right answer is.
Printed textbooks are becoming less relevant, because platforms for English teachers have ready-made interactive textbooks
A student attendance log
Although teachers are required to keep school registers and record students’ attendance, grades and lesson topics there, interactive platforms for teachers have a similar feature. You can use it so you do not forget to enter the right information in the register after a lesson. It is also useful for tutors who work with groups.
Lesson preparation
By uploading learning materials to a website for English teachers or using an interactive textbook, a teacher can prepare for a new lesson quickly. All they need to do is go through its sections and remember the structure. Depending on the class and individual students, the teacher can add new materials or decide not to use some of the existing ones.
How to choose the best website for English teachers
If you start looking for an LMS for teaching English, you will find a huge number of offers online: such programs are in demand, so developers and English schools are actively creating them. To choose a really useful platform for English teachers and tutors, we suggest following a few tips:
- before you start searching, define your own needs and requests, that is, which functions the ideal program should perform;
- a really useful platform must include a video calling program, including group calls, so that you can teach the whole class;
- choose a site where you can upload your own materials, because no methodologist can create the perfect course and interactive textbook specifically for your students and their interests;
- check which features the platform for English teachers has and what exactly you will pay for: as we wrote above, some teachers may not need an interactive textbook, so they do not have to pay for access to it;
- test the program: developers usually offer a free trial period of a week or a month;
- read reviews, but be as critical as possible, because some comments may be paid for.
Of course, a platform for English teachers is a paid program, but it fully pays for itself because it saves the teacher a lot of time. Such websites are especially useful for teachers who are just starting their careers, who still find it hard to structure a lesson properly and do not yet have a base of extra materials.