Engaging Your Online ESL Students

TPR is helpful when giving class directions. Your hands can become binoculars when you want your student to look at something. If you want them to listen and repeat, point to your mouth and cup your hand behind your ear. Small, simple gestures give beginner English students a better idea of what they should do.

Use TPR to show new vocabulary words and make sure your student repeats your movements. My favorite move is holding my foot up in the camera and making a disgusted face to show smelly. This one gets me laughs even with the most serious kids.

Grading your Language

It is difficult to engage a student if they don’t understand you. Keep it simple and grade your language with beginners. Don’t use unnecessary words and be crystal clear with directions.

Use simple phrasing for questions. For example: “What do you see? What color is it? What do you like to do?”

You want to remove any words that could confuse your student.

Instead of asking a string of questions, stick to one question at a time. Give your students thinking time to compose their answers before jumping to the next question. If they don’t understand, you can rephrase the question to help them.

Sometimes I will answer the question myself to model the correct response. Modeling helps students know what you expect of them.

Students who understand you are more likely to stay interested in the lesson. The more engaged they are, the more they can learn.

Positive Reinforcement

Use positive reinforcement to keep your ESL students engaged. Phrases like, “Amazing, Great Work, Good Job, You are so smart!” can boost their confidence a great deal.

This praise will show your student that learning is fun and easy. Positive reinforcement can also get rid of behavioral issues in most students.

Giving your student the feeling that they are improving will foster a strong intrinsic motivation to continue working hard. Nobody likes to feel that they aren’t making progress. It is your job to ensure your students know they are improving every class!

You can end class by letting your students know how proud you are and that they should be proud of themselves, too. Tell them to give themselves a pat on the back. When giving praise, be specific: “Your reading was amazing today! Nice work on grammar today! I loved chatting with you about (topic) today!”

Engaging Older, Intermediate/Advanced ESL Students:

While the tips for engaging younger students do still apply, you may find it harder to get your older students to sing and dance. Preteens can be more self-conscious and not want to be as silly. Luckily, there are many ways to engage your older ESL students.

Make it Personal

Advanced students can converse at a higher level. Use extra talk time to learn about their families, hobbies, likes, and dislikes. Always ask them about their life and remember the details.

You can make notes on your student tracker and glance at it before lessons. The quick notes will help you lead conversations towards topics they enjoy and show them you care on a personal level.

Let your Student Talk!

Producing a second language is a difficult yet useful task in language learning. If your student is talking, get out of their way. Try to save your grammar corrections until there is a natural break in their story.

It is not the end of the world if you don’t complete a lesson. The tangent your student went on about their basketball tournament or the dollhouse they built was real language practice. I would argue it did more good than whatever was on the last few slides. You can adjust your pacing throughout class to finish the lesson and allow for off-topic student rambling.

With older capable students, teacher talk time should be minimal. Flip the dynamic and have them take over as the teacher. They can describe a grammar concept, so let them! I have a special Student Teacher Switch Time where my students know it is their time to take over. Teaching is the best way to learn! Sit back and let your student teach you! 

Group Engagement Tips:

Whether small or large, handling a group class can be an entirely different ballpark when engaging ESL students. You can’t zero in on the interests of just one student. Sometimes you can’t even see all the students on camera. However, there are some tactics you can deploy to raise engagement levels in group classes.

Build your Class Community

Instead of just greeting the students at the start of class, encourage them to say hello to each other. This will foster a sense of community amongst your class.

We are all friends here, and our goal is to support each other on our learning journeys!

Another way to help your students feel comfortable learning in front of each other is to play icebreakers. Ask your students to share about their lives, and they might find interests in common with the other students.

For exercises, you can assign different roles to the students. One student can ask a question, and the other can answer. Practicing both sentence structures becomes a breeze.

Use Competition

A group class dynamic gives you the perfect chance to add a contest into the mix. Form groups and play a round of jeopardy or another game. Your kids will love working together to beat the other team!

No ESL Learner Left Behind!

As the teacher, you are the driver, and the lesson is the car. Like an effective driver, your eyes should check your classroom constantly. Between advancing slides and giving rewards, monitor your group class attendees. Most online teaching software will cycle through the student camera feeds. Without too much clicking around, you can see who is on task and who has their head in the clouds.

Notice a student with their head down? Try to direct the next question their way. Are many of the student camera feeds giving you motion sickness? It might be time to stand and shake out their energy. Read the room and adjust your methods to keep all students engaged.

Encourage Language Learning Outside of Class

Exploring the target language outside of class can spike interest in students of all levels. How to do it?

Encourage them to listen to English music, assign an interesting on-level book for reading, suggest age-appropriate TV shows to watch or point them to fun English learning games online. You can even let them choose a topic to research and write about for homework. This can get them clicking around on English websites for facts.

Increased interest in learning outside of class will seamlessly translate into keeping them engaged in class.

Wrapping It Up:

As an online teacher, you can be flexible in your teaching and engagement methods. I hope you can mix these engagement tips with your unique style to create a learning environment that will boost your students’ experience.

Making connection and engagement your priority will make the actual task of teaching almost effortless. Engaged students want to learn! The class will be more fun, not just for them, but for you as the teacher too!

What methods do you use to engage your ESL students? Let me know in the comments below!

Better yet, submit a blog post about it for our readers. 

Send your story to info@goingupeducation.com.