There is no denying that there’s been a huge disruption for many of us because of the lockdown/pandemic. With language learning students will feel that the face to face interaction just simply cannot be replaced with online learning and live lessons.

I completely understand this BUT, there is actually a silver lining in all this that most of my students have failed to pick up on and this post is about sharing with you what that is from a learner’s perspective. So here they are:

Cheat Sheet

You might be wondering what I am referring to. Well, for now there is no face to face meetings and networking events, conferences etc. That means that whatever language in English you need to practice you can just put it above your screen and BOOM start using the expressions and structures you want to practice.

See with face to face you don’t have that cheat sheet piece of paper in front of you but now, with everything being online you can make a ‘template’ with expressions that you want to practice and learn and use regularly when you are communicating to people. They can be on:

• Adverbs
• Expressions for meetings/brainstorming/networking/resolving conflict
• tips to remember for better conversation
• topics to bring up when having small talk 🙂

Summaries for speaking

This one refers to something I have started doing with some of my students. I am encouraging to read a book. I don’t mean ‘Game of Thrones’ because that won’t provide them with everyday language that they can use when they need to communicate.

Instead, recommend them some titles of books that are easy to read (fiction) and which has lot’s of dialogue and communication between characters in the story. This allows students to see examples of communicative language and when you ask them to summarize the chapter they read it pushes them to record some bullet point notes with key vocabulary from the book that helps them to express the essence of the story to you. BAM! It also is known to improve our writing.

The times require us to adapt, for teachers and students. Here are two ways that we can do just that and stay on track with any goals of what we want to accomplish as teachers and as students. Hope it helps.

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