How To Flip Your Classroom – My Experience With 4th and 5th Graders
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I stopped teaching English classes in 2009. I’d been teaching English for over 18 years and most of my students were elementary school kids (public and private).
In that same year I started working online for an American company called Transparent Language, based in Nashua (New Hampshire). At first I wrote for their English, Spanish and Portuguese blogs (which I still do) – then an opportunity to teach online came up. I thought, “Well, it can’t be that bad. It’s fewer students, I don’t need to leave my house…”. So I said yes.
They had a different style of teaching – something that caught my attention right away. Students would log on to their online course, learn words and phrases (divided into topics) in the target language then they would have a 60-minute class where they would practice such words and phrases in context.
Well, adults can study on their own and it was not that challenging to start with. However, I really liked that model where students “front load” their language abilities before class thus providing more engaging time with the instructor rather than passively listening.
As you surely know, students are students everywhere. Some “came” to class without going through the materials provided and that made teaching that class a little difficult.
However, an elementary school in the small town of East Kingston (New Hampshire) hired Transparent Language to teach their 4th and 5th graders using a modified “flipped classroom” approach.
Students completed self-guided learning activities in the Transparent Language Online platform before each live session. This strategy familiarized them with the material before each instructor-led class. By doing that students arrived to the virtual classroom more confident and ready to communicate with the teacher and their classmates. That helped keep students motivated and eager to learn.
And here’s how we did it:
1. Students chose a language they would like to learn. In the first year they chose Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian. I taught Spanish, French and Portuguese.
2. We designed a special syllabus for them. They would learn and practice around 30 words/phrases a month. This first syllabus included topics like family, school, friends etc. Students used Transparent Language’s Byki (Before You Know It) Software.
3. Lessons happened on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, in the morning and in the afternoon. There are around 50 students.
4. We divided the students into two groups. They would all go to the computer lab, where half of them would learn new material and half of them would have a live class with an instructor. This class lasted 45 minutes.
5. We used the Blackboard Collaborate platform to use to teach the live classes.
This program has produced remarkable results. Instructors and school stakeholders have noticed that students come into the language lab excited about the online classroom because they know what they need to do and expect.
I hadn’t taught kids for a long time and it was interesting to see that teaching them online also requires a lot of discipline – for example, they would have “drawing” privileges in the virtual classroom if they behaved and so on. I also learned to speak a little more slowly so they would understand instructions better.
One of their favorite activities was “Peer Interviews,” in which students interview one another and elicit responses in the target language. It was really exciting to hear the students engaging in dialogue in a new language in just a few short weeks.
As students progressed, they were learning language, but they were also learning how to use technology in new ways. Students grew very comfortable with the virtual classroom arena, and they enjoyed using the self-guided online courseware. Last but not least, they were learning critical behavioral skills, in terms of their familiarity with online etiquette, increasingly important in this age of digital communication.
This is it for today, folks! See you next time!
