Of all the subjects, English has been one of the most difficult for teachers to move online. How can we replicate the particular joys of English - the dramatic readings, the passionate debates - in the isolated world of remote learning?
Below are five principles that we’ve used in our department to make online learning as enjoyable as possible.
1. Seize the power of story
One advantage that English enjoys over other subjects is the sheer addictive thrill of finding out what happens next. Many great stories are available for free online, from sites like manybooks.net and openlibrary.org, and they often work much better than a curriculum that was planned for the classroom.
Whether you use The Adventure of the Speckled Band as a vehicle to teach detective fiction, or The Mysterious Affair at Styles as a prompt to improve grammatical accuracy, plumb for a good story and you have won half the battle.
2. Broaden cultural capital
As English teachers, we are often frustrated by all the things that we can’t teach because we simply don’t have the time. Well, surely nowis the time.
From Bible stories to myths and legends, there are many excellent resources - such as Iseult Gillespie’s animated TED Talks on Greek myths - that can be used to leave a lasting legacy.
As my colleague gleefully said when resourcing a lesson on the myth of Arachne: “I want them to think of this story whenever they see a spider - for the rest of their lives!”
3. Use technology to measure progress
Online, it can be difficult to get a feel for how students are progressing. This is where applications such as Google Forms or Show My Homework can really help.
Using frequent, short multiple-choice quizzes can provide students with a valuable sense of progress, and give teachers diagnostic information to inform future teaching. The fact that they are popular with parents too is just an added bonus!
4. Work at sentence level
As Judith C Hochman states in her influential programme The Writing Revolution, if we want to drive improvements in writing, then “sentence-level work is the engine”.
By focusing on sentence-level activities, we can guide students more closely, and students can often see faster results.
In this way, online English doesn’t look any more arduous than online science or maths, where sentence-level answers are certainly more common.
5. Use other virtual learning platforms
We all know that producing high-quality resources and sequencing them well takes time. On websites such as Seneca Learning and Massolit, there are already a host of exceptionally high-quality English courses, currently available for free.
From basic grammar to the finer points of Hamlet, there are existing resources that can support your work-life balance, as well as your students’ learning.
Robin Marsden is head of English and assistant headteacher in charge of teaching and learning at a state secondary in Oxfordshire
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