4 Ways To Prepare For Online Lessons How to be a better online student
Well hey there I’m Emma from mmmEnglish.
You’ve probably taken some English classes
at some point already, right?
Maybe way back when you were at school
you might have tried traditional classroom lessons
even as an adult
but perhaps you’ve even tried some online lessons
as well. Whatever way you look at it,
taking regular English lessons is a big deal.
It usually costs money
and it takes up quite a bit of time.
So I want to help you to get the most out of
your English classes.
That’s exactly what we’re doing here today.
In particular, I want to focus on
online language classes.
So have you ever thought about taking English lessons
online or have you before?
Online classes in particular can offer more flexibility
and can also make your classes more affordable too.
So as I said, today I want to give you some tips
to help you to prepare for your first online English lesson
but even if you’ve been taking online classes
for a while now, I still think that some of the tips
that I share today are going to be really helpful
to help you get more out of your lessons.
Now I’ve got four important things that I want to
share with you today and the first one is relevant
even before you decide which course
or which class to take.
And that is: Why are you taking this class?
Now I want you to think further than
“I need to improve my English.”
Think more specifically than that.
The more specific you can be, the more likely you are
to find the right classes, the right teacher
and get the results that you want.
So ask yourself:
Are you learning English because you need it for a job?
Do you want to focus on your pronunciation?
Do you want to try and understand a specific
English accent?
Do you want to travel abroad?
Is that why you’re learning?
You want to go to an English-speaking country.
Or maybe you’re planning on sitting an IELTS
or a TOEFL exam.
In fact, tell me in the comments right now
if you were to take an online English class,
what type of class would you be looking for?
You see if you’re planning to live or travel abroad,
then conversational English, travel vocabulary
these types of things are going to be really, really
critical for you to learn.
But if you need to improve your English skills
for your job, then business English classes
are going to be way more useful for you
than general English classes.
Maybe you just found out that you’re
going to present your work
at an international conference
and you really need to improve and focus on your verbal
communication skills. If you’re planning to sit an exam,
well, of course you need to practise all of your skills.
But it is so powerful to study with a teacher
who can help you to understand
and to practise the format of the exam.
So having a really clear answer to this question
is going to get you the best results.
Get tech-savvy and organised.
So tech-savvy means that you understand technology
not that you’re some kind of guru but
you know we’re talking about online classes here
so, of course, you need to be at least
a little tech savvy, right?
If you’ve never joined an online class before,
you need to spend some time understanding
the software that you need to use to connect.
You need to download it, you need to test it
before the time of your class
and even though this sounds really, really simple,
I can’t tell you how many times
students of mine have been trying to join my classes
after it started
and if it’s a group class, the teacher may not be able
to stop the class
and try and help you with your technical problems.
And if it’s a one-on-one class, well,
then you’re just losing the time that you’ve paid for.
So my advice is to put in a few minutes, yes
that’s all it really takes,
so that you know how to join the classes
when the time comes.
Alright, so excited about my Spanish class!
It says my video’s not working.
I plugged it in.
There we go.
Hola!
Can’t you hear me?
My microphone’s not working.
How do you change the settings?
Where are my headphones?
I left them downstairs.
Hola?
Hola!
Alright, can you see where I’m going with this?
Just get yourself organised before your first class.
And one more note about technology.
Although it’s really, really handy to be able to join
your class from anywhere on your phone,
it’s really hard to see the screen.
So if your teacher’s using a digital whiteboard and
or maybe even asking you to read a document,
it’s going to be hard to do that on your phone.
So using your phone should be a last resort.
Joining an online class from your computer is always
going to give you a better experience.
Tip number three. Take notes.
Now I know this is a really obvious thing to do
in an offline classroom, in a normal classroom
but I feel like I really need to make a point about this
for online classes.
Online classes are great. You know that I’m a fan.
I take my Spanish classes online with Lingoda
and I rave about my classes all the time.
They’re affordable, it’s flexible,
I can choose a time that suits me.
In fact, I really recommend Lingoda,
I’m going to leave a link
in the description so you can check them out.
They teach English classes as well.
But online classes can be so flexible,
sometimes we’re a little too relaxed about it,
you know we forget the basics.
You need to have a place that is quiet
and calm to do your lessons
and you need to be able to take notes.
So if you’re joining your class from your computer,
you’ll be able to take notes on your computer but
just be aware that if you are typing on a laptop,
it can actually be really noisy
and distracting for everyone else.
And if you’re joining from your phone,
you can’t take notes anywhere
so you need to be somewhere where you can write.
Now I don’t need to tell you why taking notes
during your English classes is a good idea.
You know why.
But I do want to remind you that you create
the environment for your online classes okay.
When you go to a school into a classroom,
it’s quiet, you don’t have any distractions,
you have a clean desk to work at
and it helps you to stay focused on your lesson.
You might have workbooks, things like that.
Take this same respect with you
into your online classes and you will thrive,
but you’re in charge.
Definitely come prepared with questions
or things that you want to work on during your lesson.
You assume that when you go to an English class,
that the teacher is going to be there
to guide you through, right?
You can sit back and relax. And you can do that right
but coming to the class with really clear priorities
and questions will help your teacher
to give you what you want from your lessons.
So you’re preparing for your first online class.
Now if you’re meeting a tutor one-to-one
then this is a golden opportunity for you.
Tell them what the challenges you’re having
with your English are.
Help them to help you, okay? If you tell your teacher
what you’re struggling with, then they will likely
gather materials for the next class
so that you can practise
working on those things together.
But if you don’t mention anything well, that’s fine,
but then you can’t really be frustrated if
they never helped you to master articles
because you didn’t tell them that that was a priority
for you. They might focus on something else.
If you and your teacher work together as a team,
then you’re going to go
so much further with your classes.
Now if you’re joining a group class online,
you may not be able to get as much
personalised attention
but there will probably be times when the class
finishes a little early
and you can jump in and use the opportunity
to get one of your questions answered.
So that’s my advice as an online English teacher
but now I want yours. I’m sure you’ve had some
experiences with online English classes.
In fact, if you’ve got any advice that can help
others who’ve never tried it before
how can they make their first online English class
awesome?
I’ve tried quite a few different online language
platforms and for me it’s really important
to have contact
with a native teacher.
That’s why I’ve really enjoyed my group classes
with Lingoda
but if you’ve tried any other platforms or other types
of online classes, then I’d love to hear about it
in the comments. Let me know down there.
And make sure you hit that subscribe button too.
Come back next week
for another mmmEnglish lesson
but in the meantime, you can keep yourself
busy with these ones.
I’ll see you in there!