English teaching and learning during the Covid crisis: online

classes and upskilling teachers

by Graeme Harrison, 04/05/2020
 Technology , Teaching

Graeme Harrison explores how English language teachers can help students learn in online
classes by combining digital resources with existing skills.

Since many countries have imposed a lockdown on movement, and many schools have
subsequently closed their doors, vast numbers of previously tech-shy teachers are having to
learn very quickly how to teach using online resources. This might be through delivering
lessons using virtual classrooms or providing online self-study material for students, both of
which may be new modes of lesson delivery for many.

Since the rise of the internet in the 1990s, English language (EL) teachers have had what
might be described as a difficult relationship with technology. Initial teacher education has
been slow to embrace digital ways of teaching and learning, meaning that many EL teachers
feel that they have been poorly prepared to use technology in their teaching (Clark, 2018).
Consequently, many EL teachers have been resistant to the digital wave which has
revolutionised other areas of our lives.  Understandably, there are a number of worries which
teachers have regarding introducing technology into teaching.  Three of the most common
are:

 Technology is isolating – learner interaction is limited, and dissimilar to the kind of ways
that they will be required to use language in the real world.
 Teachers are being deskilled, and the essence of teaching is being lost.
 The rise of technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI), will soon mean that
teachers are made redundant.

To deal with these one at a time:

Is technology isolating for teachers?

In many situations, technology can actually facilitate interaction. We only need think of how
many of us now use our phones and social media such as WhatsApp or Facebook to
communicate. This can be equally true of interaction in a virtual learning environment – if
managed correctly, opportunities for language use can be optimised and students will have
plenty of interaction with each other.  And, whether we like it or not, these forms of
interaction, mediated through digital channels, now account for a high percentage of
interactions in the ‘real world’.
Are EL teachers being deskilled?
EL teaching has long since stopped being a static discipline, in which teachers are primarily
conveyors of declarative knowledge, i.e. facts or information. Nowadays, English teachers are
better conceptualised as facilitators of learning who provide learning opportunities for their
students, and give feedback to support improvement. The essence of teaching is not
therefore something fixed but rather dynamic, adapting to the context and situation in which
each teacher finds themselves. The facilitation of learning through technology is a highly
skilled endeavour, and in many contexts can offer a really useful support to the classroom,
providing students with the chance to learn in new and interesting ways.

The impact of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is a 21st century spectre which haunts many professions. However, a
study into which jobs are likely to be replaced by AI in the future (Frey & Osborne, 2013) found
that the chances of the profession of school teacher disappearing was around 0.007, i.e.  very
low indeed, especially when compared with jobs such as Library Assistants (0.95), Real Estate
Brokers (0.97) and Telemarketers (0.99).

This is because teaching is a complex job, requiring a range of skills, such as subject
knowledge, classroom management, motivational skills, delivering feedback, differentiating
learning, problem solving, emotional intelligence, counselling, etc. – the list is almost
endless.

This contrasts with the current state of AI, which can be described as ‘domain specific’, i.e.
highly skilled but in one particular area, e.g. playing chess, driving a car, recognising human
faces or speech.  The ‘domain general’ skills which a teacher possesses, and the complex
interaction between those, is not going to be matched by machines anytime soon.

How Cambridge English is helping

Part of the reason that EL teaching has been slow to adopt new ways of teaching through
technology has been because in many contexts, schools lack motivation and/or resources to
implement tech solutions in and around the classroom, and therefore, the demand for skilled
digital teachers has been weak. That is clearly changing, fuelled by the need of our education
systems to keep students learning through these challenging times.

There is therefore a clear and immediate necessity for professional development in teaching
through technology for many teachers around the world, and Cambridge English is trying to
support this need through a number of initiatives:
 Firstly, a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) - Teaching English Online - has been
launched to help teachers acquire the skills needed to teach online.  The first iteration of
the course attracted over 50,000 participants.
 Next, a series of webinars has begun to help teachers who are working virtually. These
include titles such as ‘Resilience: teaching in tough times’ and ‘Managing interaction and
feedback in the virtual classroom’.  See Webinars for teachers page for more details and
to sign up.
 We have also produced a special web page called Supporting Every Teacher which brings
together a series of useful teaching resources such as lesson plans, online activities, and
our flagship Write & Improve resource, which allows students to get immediate feedback
on their writing through our innovative AI algorithm. 
 Finally, for those of you involved in preparing students for the A2 Key for Schools
exam, Exam Lift is a new free app available from the Google Play and Apple Stores which
provides engaging and motivating practice material for students to self-study.
We are also continuing to provide our services to ministries of education during this time. A
collection of materials, including those mentioned above, from us and our sister organisation
the Cambridge University Press are available. Visit Supporting ministries of education during
the COVID-19 pandemic for more details.

We appreciate that these are difficult times, but hope that this training and these resources
can help in a small way to support teachers who are delivering virtual classes or producing
online resources, perhaps for the first time. It is said that every cloud has a silver lining, and
perhaps when this is all over, we will see online learning, with the pedagogical advantages it
offers, becoming a more integral part of teaching around the world.

Teacher experiences: teaching

adults English during the
Covid-19 pandemic
Raquel Ribeiro shares her experience of teaching
adults English during the Covid-19 pandemic from
São Paulo, Brazil.
 

Let’s flash back to a few months ago, or to March 2020 to be precise. Europe was
facing the rise of Covid-19 and lockdown with The Americas hot on its heels. The world
as we knew it was about to undergo one of the most dramatic changes ever
experienced.I’m an English teacher, writer and teacher trainer from São Paulo, Brazil.
From the moment Covid-19 took hold here, I realised changes and adjustments would
need to happen quickly and I wondered how I could help.

I clearly remember the date here in Brazil: 13th March. We couldn’t really believe what
was going on. It was happening so fast and the first week of the lockdown was a walk
into the unknown… Suddenly schools all over the country were shut.

Then it sank in
Obviously, safety was my major concern at first: learning new habits related to social
distancing. The new disinfection routine for clothes, shoes, goods and public areas. As
well as making sure my family was ok and that we had enough supplies to start the
social isolation period.

Being bilingual, I usually follow the news in English and Portuguese, but at the
beginning it was so much to take in. I had to limit my exposure to the main pieces of
news regarding Covid-19 each day, to keep sane enough to carry on, be safe and help
my family.

First steps
We started by setting up a message group for all the teachers. Since then, it has been
comforting to share our concerns, get tips from each other and also have some fun! It
has brought us even closer together as a team. The school coordinators started
planning to come back online and communicated every step of the way to the team.

The last time I actually went into the school building was to borrow a laptop so that I
could use the video conferencing tool. We started an intensive marathon to learn how to
use the tool. This would enable us to continue delivering an enriching learning
experience to our learners.

Concerns and outcomes

Day 1 of the live online learning experience arrived and we were all a mixture of
excitement, worry and apprehension:

Would we have connectivity issues? Would our students?

How would the classes be delivered?

Would all the students be able to attend the class?

Thankfully, everything went well. Student attendance was very high – and on a
Saturday no less! This is usually a very busy day in the language schools in Brazil as
this is generally when adults are available to attend classes. The message thread of the
teachers’ group was full of people sharing experiences and relief.

We had set off on our new journey

As we took part in the training we were given equipment such as laptops, cameras and
earphones. I started getting worried about the race to learn how to use the main video
conferencing tools and the tips and tricks in the many online teacher communities I
follow.

There was huge generosity shown by the teacher trainers, publishers, and educational
segments to make resources available. So many questions and doubts also became
apparent: it was clear there was a large digital divide among teachers. The tension was
clearly felt in the posts and message threads.

One thing really moved me: what about teachers and students from schools with limited
resources? How would they be able to cope?

This is a very important issue to me because all my life I have studied in state schools
here in São Paulo. I know exactly what it is like to study in a school with very limited
resources on the outskirts of the city. I assist teachers in a state school where I
graduated from and I support a group of English teachers, sharing techniques and ideas
to integrate tech resources as much as possible.

Insights
I decided to start by sharing simpler digital collaboration ideas, recorded in Portuguese
and in English on my YouTube channel and Instagram TV. I am aware of the lack of
resources faced in some communities and local schools. But I also know how popular
and powerful the mobile phone is and how it can be used to combat the huge digital
divide across my country.

The last topic of research and discussion in my classes before schools closed was the
change of status of Covid-19 to a pandemic. I used the news back then to encourage
the students to learn new words and expressions, analyse the grammar and of course,
to share their concerns with each other. You can read about these teaching experiences
in my blog post about using global news in your online English lessons.

From teaching adult learners in the current context, I have learnt that including current
pieces of news related to working from home (WFH), and job interviews via video
conferencing provides us with an opportunity to teach reading, verb tenses, new words,
exam preparation exercises, and much more. It’s also a way to enable students to
sympathise and share their concerns and experiences with each other.
Reaching out on social media channels
As I shared the videos, I chose to focus on tools that can be accessed by teachers
struggling to use video conferencing software or who are facing frequent network
bandwidth issues.

The experience of sharing has been both challenging and rewarding. Talking to
teachers from my country as well as from many other parts of the world certainly
broadens our perspective of different educational scenarios. The feeling of being able to
contribute to the ELT / EFL community I belong to is fantastic. I created a video (in
Portuguese with subtitles in English) which summarises how my synchronous online
classes have been.

Remote teaching goes beyond video conferencing tools. I have learnt that it means
communication and connection with our learners. Having the time to let them express
how they’ve been feeling, the challenges and worries they’ve been facing during the
Covid-19 pandemic. It shows them other possibilities and encourages them on their
journey to learn a foreign language, which is likely to play an important role in their
future employment and in making their voices heard in this increasingly globalised
world.

We’ll be continuing to share advice, tips and tools to help you adapt to teaching
in new environments. If you would like to read more blog articles from the
Supporting Every Teacher series, click here. 

How Best to Serve English Learners

during a Pandemic
As school closures stretched from spring weeks
into summer months—and with students’ in-person
return dates still unclear—education leaders’ focus
has begun to shift. And necessarily so: in most
places, the official end of the school year offered
no relief, instead simply raising the curtain on a
host of pressing questions about the fall. Was the
summer a moment for the traditional break,
remedial instruction, or some mix of the two?
When should school restart for the 2020–21 school
year—and how might it strike a balance between
in-person and remote instruction? And, of course:
how can schools improve the quality and breadth
of their instructional approaches, with an eye
towards prioritizing the needs of historically
underserved students and their families? How can
they ensure that these approaches are as equitable
as possible, even under trying circumstances?

When answering these questions, schools in almost

every community should think particularly
carefully about how they plan to address the needs
of English-learning students (ELs). These students
make up a growing share of the U.S. student body.
There were over five million ELs in U.S. schools in
2017—an increase of more than one million
students since 2000.

Unfortunately, there is little research on how to

best serve linguistically diverse students via
distance, virtual, or hybrid learning models. Worse
still, there is significant evidence that these
students were especially poorly served by many
schools’ spring remote learning efforts. If schools
fail to center these students’ needs in the fall, they
risk further widening these systemic opportunity
gaps. How can we do as well as possible by ELs
now that schools are reopening (using various
instructional models) for the fall?

Building the EL Virtual

Learning Forum
In an effort to address this problem, The Century
Foundation launched the EL Virtual Learning
Forum this spring (with generous support from the
Heising-Simons Foundation). The forum is a
discussion group that connects EL-serving
educators in discussions with one another, as well
as with experts, so that they can ask questions and
develop new ideas for supporting these students
during the pandemic. As the forum grows, TCF
experts will periodically publish pieces so that
lessons from these discussions can be shared and
disseminated throughout the public education field.
(Are you an educator, administrator, advocate, or
research working with ELs? Interested in joining
the EL Virtual Learning Forum? Click here.)

How can schools best serve these children? Some

of the key practices are generic. ELs are more
likely to be growing up below the poverty line than
their English-dominant peers. As such, they
frequently suffer from educational inequities rooted
in socioeconomic status. For example, many ELs
and their families are struggling with food and
housing insecurity. ELs are also likely to face
digital and connectivity divides; that is, they are
disproportionately likely to lack access to learning
technology devices and an internet connection. For
many schools, the first steps in serving ELs better
requires addressing these basic opportunity gaps.

However, there are also unique, EL-specific risks

for learning loss while schools are closed. While
most ELs are native-born American citizens, many
live in homes without native speakers of English.
This “linguistic isolation” can create unique
challenges for supporting and serving these
students during the pandemic. Oral language
development is especially important for ELs—
particularly in the early years. They appear to
benefit from regularly speaking and listening in
English and in their home languages.

This can be challenging while schools are closed.

It’s one thing for teachers to plan lessons and
design academically aligned language development
activities to get ELs talking when they’re
surrounded by students at school. It’s quite another
to replicate those activities during remote learning.

Still, there are ways for teachers to support ELs’

oral language development right now. For instance,
many schools are conducting online instruction in
whole-class settings. To ensure that ELs have more
opportunities to talk, teachers could break their
classes into pairs or smaller groups (some video
call platforms allow these kinds of grouping within
whole-class meetings, while others offer relatively
straightforward workarounds). This would allow
ELs to engage with smaller groups of peers,
perhaps including those who have particularly
strong oral language skills that allow them to serve
as models. Teachers designing these sorts of
activities should also think constructively about
conversation prompts that will encourage ELs to
participate.

When access to the internet remains an issue,

teachers could establish rotating “phone pals” for
ELs and their peers. Each student is assigned a list
of several classmates to call during the week.
Again, educators can provide guiding questions for
the conversations. In bilingual schools—or
monolingual English schools with significant
bilingual populations—EL students should be
encouraged to chat both with English-dominant
classmates as well as peers who share their home
languages. The key, remember, is to help ELs
continue to practice using languages—every one
that they speak.

In addition to thinking creatively about supporting

ELs’ language development, educators must focus
on engaging and supporting these students’
families. Adults in ELs’ families may or may not
have strong English skills, so they should be
encouraged to work with their children in
whichever languages they speak best.

Critically, like all children, many ELs may

currently feel significant stress and anxiety
stemming from prolonged social isolation. School
activities designed to foster children’s
conversations with caregivers can include
academic work, but should also help ELs’
caregivers check in with their children’s state of
mind.

An intentional focus on language must not lead to

segregation of ELs from any academic content. Not
only would this impoverish ELs’ overall
educations: it would also impoverish their language
acquisition. EL students learn languages best when
they’re engaging with it authentically in connection
with academic content. In other words, models that
pull ELs away from academic instruction “to focus
on learning English” are counterproductive.
Language is harder to learn in that sort of vacuum.
Instead, school should design their remote learning
 models to ensure that ELs engage with
language and academics together. In those settings,
they should design lessons and activities that
support ELs’ access to all academic content—by
identifying and explaining key new vocabulary,
and providing detailed modeling of what ELs need
to do to succeed on each assignment.

To do this reflective work under the uncertainty of

current health conditions, educators need extra
support to navigate the uncertainty of transitioning
to remote learning, and ELs are a growing share of
many schools’ enrollments. Federal and state
policymakers should support increased resources
for ELs’ education to help schools weather the
current crisis.

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Preparing for the Fall

ELs need to be central to schools’ remote learning
planning. Their oral language development is
critical in the early years, and this spring’s
experience made clear that—without a high level
of intentional effort—they will be left behind.
Furthermore, ELs need to be included so that their
families are connected with teachers—and with
ideas for how they can support children’s learning
at home. Regular video calls can be a social lifeline
for kids lonely in isolation from their friends, no
matter which languages a given child speaks, or
how fluently. And, of course, schools should avoid
language-specific education solutions for ELs if
they have not yet addressed these students’ basic
needs.

Nearly one-quarter of U.S. school-aged children

speak a non-English language at home. This
diverse group of students will make up a huge
portion of America’s future voters and workers.
Our collective national success is inextricably
linked to how well our schools serve them now.