I started teaching English in South Korea in February 2012. What I initially thought would be about a year of living abroad before returning to Ireland to continue as a graphic designer, turned into ten years of traveling and teaching English in schools in Korea, Spain, Melilla and Ireland. Now, I still teach online while also working as a freelance graphic designer and creative. While I taught English in Elementary schools and language schools for ten years, turning to online teaching during the pandemic lockdown was a bit daunting as I had no experience of teaching this way before. How could I start? What would I need? I have put together the five basic things you need for teaching online as requested for most companies, and the five things I use for teaching English online now. There are also links to the products I use if you need more help. I have not included a laptop of computer on this list as I think that goes without saying. I use both an Acer Laptop and a Dell Latitude Desktop when doing online teaching.
1. Camera
A good camera is essential. Relying on your laptop camera may not be acceptable for most companies as the quality can be quite low. Also with a wired webcam you have more freedom to position it wherever you want. It should be at eye level. When applying for teaching jobs online, a good image quality may be the difference between being hired and getting regular students or failing the basic technical requirements for teaching online. Before I started teaching online, I spent hours researching the best and affordable web cameras for online teaching. The Logitech Pro C920 webcam was consistently recommended. At the time I wanted to order one it was just at the start of the global pandemic and it seems that everyone wanted one of these webcams as they were sold out on Amazon. Eventually, after a few weeks, I tracked one down. Thankfully, they are back up on Amazon. The Logitech webcam comes with a free Logitech capture download which allows you to adjust exposure, lighting, add some filters and add intro text to your broadcasts as well as giving you the option to flip between broadcasting your desktop screen or you. You can also broadcast a screen within a screen. This is a great little addon if you want to make your own YouTube videos or need to show your students a large view of your whiteboard or videos.
2. Headset
A good headset is just as important as your camera, and you will need noise canceling on your microphone to prevent any background noise coming through to your students. Handy to have, especially if you are sharing a home with other people, have traffic outside or noisy neighbors. The Microsoft LX 3000 headset was one of the headsets recommended by the online teaching company I work with. I have been using it for over a year now and I have never had a complaint from students. It is a lot cheaper than most headsets out there, as you can get it for less than $30. It is a wired headset which is a requirement for some online teaching jobs as there is less chance of losing audio connection. It has a USB connection to your laptop or desktop computer. It also has volume controls and a mute button which is also handy if you need to cough or have… um… any other surprise bodily functions that you would rather your students didn’t hear.
3. Good Light
Good lighting is essential when teaching online. Mainly because your students want to see you clearly. For lower-level students they will rely on gestures and expressions when learning English, and so they will need to see these clearly. They will also need to see flash cards and props when you use them. When teaching phonics and pronunciation, it is also important that they can see the shapes you make with your lips and mouth. Apart from all the above reasons to have good lighting, you also don’t want to look like you are making a horror movie with dark shadows and unflattering basic florescent lighting. Ring lights are brilliant because they don’t heat up and don’t cast any dark shadows on your face. Whether you are making a YouTube video, a zoom call with a friend or teaching classes back-to-back for a few hours, the last thing you want are a few hot desk lamps in your face. I just use one 10inch ring light with a desktop stand when I am teaching. The Mactrem 10 inch ring light LED with a clamp and stand is a wonderful choice as you can just clamp it onto your monitor or desk or leave it on the stand.
4. Background
Depending on which company that you choose to work for, your backdrop may vary. In general, it is recommended to have a clean white or pale wall behind you which you can add some educational and colorful decorations to. Having something you can also use as a teaching point is a good idea as you can use this as a warm-up at the beginning of the lesson or to extend your lesson if you run out of materials but have an extra few minutes to kill. I would suggest alphabet cards instead of a giant poster. Large alphabet cards can be placed on the wall behind you and you can take them down and use them to practice phonics during the lesson. You can use them to play ‘eye spy something beginning with…’ games, as a reference for playing Pictionary, as well as many other simple and fun games with no preparation. They are also a good reminder for low-level students from Asian countries of how English letters are written. You can also rearrange them to spell target vocabulary and move them around to fit your wall size. I really like these Zonon alphabet cards as they also have cute and colorful pictures on them that can be easily seen behind me when I am teaching.
5. Puppets
I love puppets, and I have always been a huge fan of Jim Henson and the Muppets. Now I use them when teaching English online. Puppets are awesome for teaching younger children for a few reasons:
First, they will help shy children to relax in front of the teacher. If the child is afraid or shy of the teacher, then you can let the puppet take the lead on screen. Songs for young children are a great icebreaker and whenever I need to play a song for the younger students, I bring my puppet up in front of the screen and let them lip sync to the song. It looks more fun for the kids and it also gives me a little time to either check my notes in the background or have a minute or two to relax.
Second, sometimes young kids can seize up during a class and just won’t speak. In these situations, I use my puppets to ask and answer questions. I have had some kids before who just didn’t speak. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, I just continue with the class and use my puppet as a stand in for the student. In this way the student is still listening, but you are not struggling through a class and spending too long on one slide/page.
I bought my puppets from The Puppet Company.
The Puppet Company has a vast assortment of colorful kid friendly puppets that fit both an adult and a child’s hand. So far, I have three different puppet characters from the Puppet Company and I plan to buy a few more.
While these are just the basic things that you need when teaching online, you can keep adding to your teaching materials as you go. The products that I have sourced were the most inexpensive I could find that also worked well for teaching. I am presently teaching with Itutorgroup and Palfish. My students are mostly children and young teenagers. I get endless use from the alphabet cards and the puppets with the younger children, and I have never had any technical problems with my Logitech C920 webcam, Microsoft headset or ring light since I bought them last year. However you start your online teaching journey, you will find that it is a lot of fun and a great way to make extra income from the comfort of your own home.
