Teacher in Development

 Distance work via the internet has always been a point of great interest to me. For independent TESOL professionals, it just makes really good sense.

Increased flexibility that "instant" communication and connection offers. You could offer classes at hours when many other schools or teachers simply do not. I have a few students who want classes at times when I am normally in commute, or on my way to take my son to school, which means that they are not teachable - at least not by me, not  yet.

Reduce waiting time. Some students chronically arrive late. Wouldn’t it be a better use of time if you simply signed onto your Skype account, and then went about doing all the other things you needed to do while waiting for yours student to show up?

Reduced Cancelation Frustration. Skype would also reduce that terrible sensation of commuting to class only to have the group cancel as you pull into the company parking lot. With Skype you could feel the frustration in the comfort of your own home.

Skype Adoption = Steps towards a Greener Work Solution.  I don’t see myself as an environmentalist, but I am sure thinking more seriously about how I could be Greener in how I work. One way this could happen is if more of my classes were done over Skype. I think this is more wishful thinking at the moment, for a few reasons that I’ll get into in a moment, but Skyping to class instead of commuting to class….well…that would be a lovely thing. On good days I loose 2 hours in traffic, or in simply waiting for students to arrive. I can sure think of other things I could do with that time. But what about the traffic and pollution I help create by driving my lovely car? Multiply that by the thousands of other ESL teachers in this city…would there be an impact? And what if a culture of telecommuting grew in acceptance throughout the city? Could there actually be some impact on environmental levels?  VOIP technology is on the increase here, and maybe as the years go by, "hotdesking" to class will become a stronger possibility.

I’ve never actually tried a Skype class. I’ve used it lots to stay in touch with my family in Canada, but never for work purposes. I find myself wondering about a few things:

1. Would Skype classes help teacher and student create the needed connections for language development to occur? We learn our first language (L1) from direct, face to face contact time with the people around us. We have eye, facial expression, touch, and emotional
contact with the people who help us learn the language. These contacts, I think, are vital to how well we learn the language. Could Skype, or any other online initiative, ever reach us on these levels in authentic ways? I don’t know.  I have a feeling that real face to face time is something we will never be able to distance ourselves from, and maybe we should never try.

2. There are difficult tech gliches like lag and video crashes. I often experience this when I get into long discussions with my family. I get echos of my own voice (weird…feels like I’m talking with myself through a long pipe sometimes.) but most difficult has been starting video chats. Very often we can only have one video screen open at a time, or we simply crash the conversation.  I’m not the first to mention this: TeacherDude
first got me thinking seriously about the difficulties in Skyping a class back in June 2006.

I think the only way Skype would fly well in the classroom would be if both teacher and student had high speed net connections with the right computer to handle it. These variables are likely the most difficult to balance out.

On Skypecasts
Just today I was reading through a post via Stephen Downes who comments on, and points to a very interesting read around this subject. Oddly enough, one of the major difficulties mentioned by VanDrimmelen, and I’ve heard this on other occasions too, are frequent interruptions by enthusiastic ESL learners wanting to practice their English. Go figure.

What do you think? Do you see telecommuting to English class (or any other class you teach) as a possibility in the days and months to come? Would you ever adopt it? Have you? What have been your experiences?
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