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“Face-to-face classes will be more productive if we bring the dynamics and technological tools used in virtual courses.”
The radical changes we had to face to provide 100% virtual teaching due to the pandemic left lessons that will help us improve face-to-face education. The return to face-to-face classes will be more productive if we bring the dynamics and technological tools used in virtual classes during confinement. By adapting and applying some activities and resources predominated in virtual classes, we can design a more dynamic and creative face-to-face education that leads to acquiring knowledge through practice.
Teaching English as a foreign language expands the frontiers of knowledge and learning. English is used in local and international trade, tourism, entertainment, health, and education. It is relevant in negotiations and the internationalization of companies and organizations, regardless of the professional field (Feió-Cuenca, T. E. & Feijó-Cuenca, N.P, 2020). In many countries worldwide, English is an indispensable second language.
“With this experience in the course, I managed to break some paradigms of a virtual course, which for many is limited to participation in forums, reading countless files, and sending essays to the teacher for further qualification.”
Virtuality left us lessons that can help improve face-to-face education, specifically in teaching a foreign language. The central point is educational innovation, which facilitates meeting the needs of education in a practical, sustainable, and easily transferable way in various contexts (Rodríguez, González, and Gámiz, 2016). Below, I share the following recommendations.
1. Create and manage a website for your course
While emails and WhatsApp are very efficient means of communication, sometimes they saturate us with the number of messages. Instead, a website will generate in students more significant commitment and order in their assigned homework. They will quickly and easily see their work and projects delivered during the course without wasting time searching in countless folders, archives, or emails. Some of these recommended and free websites are Wix or Blogger. If you do not know how to configure a website, you can watch tutorials or follow “the step-by-step” that these pages offer for website creation and use. You can even rely on your students to learn how to manage websites because, in many cases, these resources are very user-friendly. Similarly, using digital platforms such as Google Classroom facilitates class materials and interactions because they offer different ways to present the curriculum through various activities.
2. Use active resources for the practice of listening comprehension
Virtuality taught us that educational resources such as podcasts and videos are of great relevance for learning. Many websites offer a wide range of activities and exercises for learning the English language that can be integrated into a class. Some helpful resources to begin are:
The ability to listen is what you should emphasize most to your students when teaching a second language because listening is linked to oral production and improving pronunciation. It is also one of the most challenging activities for most students.
3. Implement interactive games
Students enjoy activities that promote healthy competition using technology. Therefore, I recommend you regularly apply interactive games in the classroom. This activity increases the students’ attention and persistence and motivates them to participate and learn the language and enjoy every minute of learning. Examples of these activities are Quizlet, Quizizz, Kahoot, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Alphabet soup, Find the differences, Riddles and Karaoke. These activities help teach grammatical topics such as verb tenses, vocabulary in all categories, adjectives, adverbs, comparatives, superlatives, etc. In addition, students can access the applications on websites accessible to mobile devices. Thus, using the cell phone becomes a good strategy in the classroom and not a distraction.
4. Present oral argumentation activities
Practicing a second language speaking is one of the most critical activities for students, causing them to face their fears and experience a crucial metacognitive process. Oral production activities such as exhibitions, dialogues, and role-playing games are a must. The prolonged confinement using virtuality helped us know a little more about the students’ points of view and opinions; everyone became closer through conversations. When resuming face-to-face classes, continue to promote activities that boost your students’ critical and argumentative skills, such as debates, case studies, hypothetical situations, and analyses of news or current events. Through these activities, you can cover conjunctions, conditionals, verb tenses, adjectives, clauses, and indirect style, pulling in various grammatical topics and vocabulary that allow students to perform complex cognitive processes when expressing their ideas verbally. Activities and topics that connect directly with their interests are essential in this process.
5. Promote more student autonomous work
Perhaps autonomy is a little difficult for students because, in education, they are used to being led by the hand by a teacher or leader who shows them the correct path and demands results through activities, work, or exams. Instead, we must lead students to deepen their autonomous learning. They control their learning process with the help of metacognitive strategies such as self-assessment, planning, reviewing, self-regulation, and criticism (Ministry of National Education, 2014).
The challenges of confinement and virtuality and being “away” from the classroom made students assume greater commitment and responsibility to research, tackle their assignments, and, most significantly, practice the knowledge learned. Our job as teachers is to be constant leaders and tutors for our students; however, students should learn to develop a more autonomous learning style to carry out activities independently,
without limiting themselves to pursue a good grade or satisfy the teacher’s requirement. Some of these autonomous work activities in a foreign language course are watching movies or series, listening to music, reading news, novels, cartoons, magazines, face-to-face or virtual conversational clubs, etc. All aim to make learning a foreign language a daily routine for pleasure, not an academic duty.
6. Consider the teacher’s role in a face-to-face, virtual, or hybrid model
As teachers and academic leaders, we must have the flexibility to teach in different scenarios. The COVID-19 pandemic taught us that we could adapt quickly to changes while considering the needs of the current context and the pedagogical and technological resources at hand. After experiencing virtuality and returning to face-to-face or hybrid classes, we can employ didactic strategies that combine foreign language communication skills with the new technological resources and activities learned during confinement.
Reflection
With this experience, I managed to break some paradigms of a virtual course without limiting students’ participation only in forums, reading an endless number of archives, and sending essays to the teacher for grading. At the end of the course, students expressed satisfaction with comments highlighting the improvement of their listening ability and the oral production of the English language. I also attained a special closeness with the students, a more humane student-teacher relationship that prevailed without losing the essence of the sessions in the classroom. Students were more motivated and took full advantage of virtual resources to reinforce language skills, as several students did not have optimal access to technological tools.
Additionally, the students demonstrated a noticeable advance in oral production and listening comprehension of English thanks to the constant practicing in various activities during and outside of class. The grades obtained at the course’s end were significantly higher than those in the diagnostic exam and the first weeks of class. The students’ commitment and dedication to the course were outstanding.
What “lessons learned” did virtuality leave you? What activities did you discover in virtuality that you would like to continue applying in face-to-face classes? In the comments section, I invite you to share what you learned from virtuality that could help us improve face-to-face courses.
About the Author
Andrea Yepes (yuryyepeslandinez@cedoc.edu.co) is a Colombian teacher seeking passionately to improve education. She teaches English in the National Army of Colombia. A professor in modern languages (English, French, and German) with a Masters in Teaching in Higher Education, she has several years of experience as a translator and teacher in various higher education institutions. Professor Yepes’ is an oil painting artist.
References
Duran, R. and Estay-Niculcar, C. (2016). Formación en buenas prácticas docentes para la educación virtual. Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, España. V. 19: 1
Feijó-Cuenca, T. E., and Feijó-Cuenca, N. P. (2020). INFLUENCIA DEL IDIOMA INGLÉS EN EL ENTORNO EMPRESARIAL, COMERCIAL Y DE NEGOCIOS: Artículo de investigación. REVISTA CIENTÍFICA MULTIDISCIPLINARIA ARBITRADA YACHASUN – ISSN: 2697-3456, 4(7), 396-408. https://doi.org/10.46296/yc.v4i7.0056
Ministerio de Educación Nacional, (2014). Propuesta de Lineamientos para la Formación por Competencias en Educación Superior. Colombia. Accessed at: http://goo.gl/ixzZW
Rodríguez, M., González, E. y Gámiz, V. (2016). La perspectiva de innovación que se impulsa desde la educación superior. Journal for Educators, Teachers and Trainers, 7(1), 193-209
Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Observatory of Educational Innovation.
Translation by Daniel Wetta.
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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