Reflection on the webinar (2)

source: https://bridge.edu/tefl/blog/teach-english-online-from-home/

Right before the Christmas break, me and other students of the GPTE programme took part in the webinar with Ms Justyna Wasek called 'Working in a bilingual preschool and teaching children online'. The presenter works in the international preschool. She also has experience teaching both in the preschool and in the primary school.

She starts the webinar with introducing herself, describing her workplace and her coworkers' background. Then, she briefly characterises the programmes (to learn the language, motor skills, maths) and methods used there, as well as illustrates the learning environment with some photos. She emphasises on the importance of teacher-students and teacher-parents relationships. In the second part of the webinar, the presenter highlights some of the difficulties while teaching online - with using technological devices, engaging the students, avoiding distractions. She compares classes conducted in the classroom with the online ones, focusing on the length of the class, principles of the lesson and activities used. The presenter also presents some sources for online classes materials. In the end, some tips and advice are shared with the audience.

I really enjoyed this webinar. It was both informative and engaging. Most parts were based on the teacher's experience working with young learners, both online and in the class. For me, learning about new sources with useful materials is always a big goal, and I'm happy we got a chance to listen about them. I really loved the time for questions, which is usually very limited and some people may not have a chance to speak. This time, there was enough time for students to make comments and share their thoughts. This webinar was a little bit shorter than the previous one, which was an advantage for me. It's really challenging to focus after some amount of time, and this hour was just enough for the presenter to speak about the topic and still leave some space for possible questions and thoughts. 

The most interesting segment of the webinar for me was when the presenter started sharing some tips for teaching online (though they also apply to traditional teaching). I especially agree with the one about being prepared and having extra ideas ready to apply any time. More than once I had to make fast changes during the class, when my students were not interested or something was not going the way I planned. There are many activities that don't require lots of preparation and can be easily applied to different topics, e.g. charades, listen-and-do, the categories game, who am I? (detective activity). As the teacher gains experience, he or she learns new activities, which will prove useful in the future.

Overally, I think it was time well-spent. I am really looking forward for other webinars, curious what they are going to be about. I feel like even though this webinar covered the topic of online teaching, there's still a lot more to discover in this area. For the next one, I would really love to hear more about challenging kids in online classrooms and the most effective ways for dealing with them.