Throughout your career teaching English as a language, you're often exposed to technology for lesson delivery. It seems like these days, some technology can even run on autopilot.
You prepare lessons using videos, podcasts, and images. You adhere to pedagogical methodologies integrating technology into the classroom. But, . . . the environment you're now asked to teach in doesn't have access to the tech you're used to.
You've just stepped through a time warp from modern technology and teaching conveniences into a world where there are no classroom computers, projector screens, podcasts, YouTube, PowerPoint, iPods, iPads, or other electronic teaching aids. What you see before you is an eager group of people with notepads and pens. In fact, all you have in the classroom is a whiteboard, an easel, chairs, windows, and four walls. What do you do now? What is your Plan B?
In fact, it is often technological bells and whistles that detract from what matters—interacting with learners at a fundamental (human and meaningful) level toward acquiring the target language.
I'm going to show you that technology is not the end all be all of English language teaching. In fact, it is often technological bells and whistles that detract from what matters—interacting with learners at a fundamental (human and meaningful) level toward acquiring the target language. Technology is only one tool for English language learning. Sadly though, many English language teachers (ELTs), schools, and academies are under the impression that technology is indispensible. I'm here to tell you it's not.
Below are a few ideas for teaching in situations with little to no technology that may help you gain confidence in such situations.
The Whiteboard Is Your Friend
Many, if not most classrooms are equipped with whiteboards (some still even have blackboards). Sadly, they are an oft-forsaken relic of the old days of teaching. However, whiteboards can be excellent tools.
As an ESL teacher in the trenches, it's always good to have at least one or two markers in your teaching bag. Use your markers to draw images for your learners to understand nouns, verbs, or even concepts. Try writing sentences for dissection (parsing); list words in similar groups, and create charts demonstrating relationships.
With a few flicks of your wrist, you can turn a whiteboard into a powerful learning aid.
Paper Copies Work Great
With concerns over the environment, handouts are considered a thing of the past among many ESL teachers. However, I'm referring to copies. You can use one copy held high to show the information and ask students to take notes. You can also post or distribute one or two originals and ask learners to do a quick handwritten copy on their notepads.
As an English language teacher with limited means, copies can be used strategically. Copies of key pages or elements (not all) of the lesson material can provide visual and technical assistance for key activities or instructions.
The teacher can facilitate copies for group work, use them to stick on the walls for games, and use specific copies for complex images that can be discussed. It's important to be wise with your printing and copying because many schools or academies in low-economic areas do not have large budgets for such things. But handwritten copies can do the job.
Discover the Artist Within
Even drawing on a large blank piece of paper (an A4 paper taped together if need be) can show or demonstrate the language point.
This can speak a thousand words in English to your students. Use your sketch to elicit 1,000 words of description or sentence construction—even make it into a game. The game focuses on which team can express the most words that describe the image. This can be perhaps 100- 1000 words depending on the class dynamics and the wining target you set.
Another version of the game is to describe an image of one or multiple activities (e.g., a man sitting on a bench in the park). The group that provides the most grammatically accurate or complete narration wins.
Teachers who invest a little time in drawing can become image-makers without technology. Not only that, but teachers who can draw, or at least try to draw, are providing visuals for the learners in the class who cannot make sense of certain ideas. Sometimes simply writing words out is helpful even without images.
Instead of talking as is the norm, teachers can draw their way to engaging learners more without technology.
Develop Your Acting Skills
When you have nothing left, you have yourself.
English teachers are sometimes called “edutainers” in the classroom for a reason. That means, sometimes, you will have to act things out so your students can follow along. You can act out a dialogue stepping from one side to the next to change character. You might also need to change your voice, or even act out certain elements of dialogue to help learners visualize and hear the target language.
In that sense, who needs videos, right! Step outside your comfort zone, and don't be afraid to put on a little show when needed. You might be pleasantly surprised at how your class members respond.
Use The World Around You
Maybe you're reading this and thinking, I can’t act, and I can’t draw; making copies is problematic, and the whiteboard is unusable. What to do in such cases?
When there are no other options available, use the world around you for your teaching enhancements. You can ask the students to look outside the classroom and describe what they see. Try asking them to narrate what they see.
In addition, you can point to objects or specific scenes and have students explain what they see in English. You can ask them to act out what they see, then speak about what they see. It could be something as simple as a garden outside with flowers. Encourage students to narrate a gardener’s actions in the garden, or they can describe the sky. Learners can describe the clothing of people walking outside, and the list goes on.
The benefit is that these are familiar concepts for students to start with. Then you can aid them in branching out to the unknown (Krashen’s I + 1 if you will, or we can say scaffolding—going from known to unknown by way of connections).
It is literally a world of possibilities!
Wrapping Things Up
If you are transitioning from a high-tech to a low-tech environment, it's not the end! It is but a new experience for you to master as an ESL teacher and to gain more confidence. Keep these ideas in mind to be better prepared to step into a low-tech classroom.
Students want to use English not just to see English being used (as we share with our technology). They do not just want to be entertained but enabled to communicate. The frills, bells, and whistles come later.
Use basic elements to gain interest, to engage your learners, and to aid in teaching even without the technology of modern classrooms. And remember, the important part is not the technology that you have but how you use what you have available for the benefit of learners.
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Author: Jerry S.
This is an update of a blog post I wrote for the OnTESOL blog several years ago.
Author bio: Jerry is a marketplace English language trainer of 21 years and Senior TESOL Certificate Instructor affiliated with Midwest Education Group, with a wide range of experience and education ranging from bachelor to doctorate degrees in various fields, who writes articles, blogs, ESL e-learning materials, academic papers, and more.
Photo by Ryunosuke Kikuno on Unsplash.
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