How to Teach Online

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected educational systems worldwide. Despite the challenges thrown by the pandemic, educators across the world have come up with interesting alternatives to keep the teaching and learning process continuing.

UTAS, IbriCT has always been in the forefront to embrace the changes and the challenges and prove its mettle.  The English Language centre (IbriCT) has come up with a resourceful platform to encourage ELT professionals, to share their innovative ideas on English language teaching. 

As part of this initiative, Mr. Tahir Alam Awan gave an online presentation on August 24,2020 on the topic titled “How to Teach online.” He delivered his sixty minutes presentation in two parts: the first part was the theoretical aspect and the second part focused on the practical aspect of the online teaching and learning process.

 The interesting part of the presentation was the three different categories of the teachers with different perspectives on online teaching process. It came as a natural progression to the first category of the teachers and the teachers of the second category were compelled to learn and third category was interested but had constraints. Another interesting observation was, online teaching has been a boon to many teachers with disability. 

The presentation highlighted the emotional aspects of teachers and other pros and cons of online teaching. The educational technology is dynamic and has plethora of information on teaching and learning tools. As a word of caution, he stated that the ELT teachers should be prudent enough to choose the right ones to generate interest towards learning in their students.

Mr.Tahir also underlined the smart choices of technologies which meet the combination of two elements: the institutional policy and learning objectives of the classes we deliver.  He drew the attention of the presenters to open access technology and the institutional supported technology. He also opined that technology as a standalone medium is inadequate to make teaching complete. A teacher’s exposure to right technology, pedagogy, content and knowledge becomes the pre-requisite to effective online teaching and a conducive environment gives an edge to the teaching and learning process.

A sample reading lesson along with relevant activities were also discussed during the presentation. 

He ended the presentation by extending heartfelt thanks to Dr Abdusalam, Mr. Faisal and all the attendees who added value through their interaction.