Improving communication skills with online tools

Michael Man will show you how to use messaging, discussions and chats effectively with the Online Practice and Online Workbooks for your course. You can take part in his webinar ‘Messages, Discussions and Chat – improving communication skills with the Online Practice and Online Workbooks for your course’ on 8^th October 2014 from 10:00 – 11:00 and 15:00 – 16:00 BST.

Communication and collaboration tools

How can we give our students more individualised instruction and feedback? How can we extend communication outside the classroom? Teachers can struggle with these issues especially when large classes and teaching demands get in the way.

Individualised instruction and feedback

All the courses with new Online Practice and Online Workbooks (listed below) have integrated communication and collaboration tools. By using the Messages tool, teachers can contact the entire class with updates or announcements. This is a useful tool for reminding students of deadlines or other classroom management issues, and is also useful for relaying information about upcoming aims and learning objectives. As well as reaching the class as a whole, teachers can contact groups of students. This is not only useful for differentiating instruction, but also during stages of project work. For example, teachers can give each group targeted guidance or further instruction. The Messages tool also allows for individual messaging so that teachers can personalise feedback. In this way teachers can direct students to exercises which would benefit them, set targets to work on and send reminders related to those targets.

Extending communication outside the classroom

Learners often struggle with finding ways to use English outside the classroom. The Discussion tool provides a way for students to do this in a non-threatening environment.  Teachers can assign a discussion task as part of assessed coursework or to continue a class discussion that students may not have had time to complete. These discussions can be monitored or viewed later by the teacher who can then use them to help students build language strategies for better interaction. The discussions are also a useful resource for assessing in which language areas students may need revision or follow-up work. The Discussion tool can also be set up for use by groups so that they can meet in a virtual space to discuss project work.

The live Chat function is another way to increase contact time with English, and many students will already be familiar with if they use social media. These can be whole class chats or set up as groups. Ideas for using the chat include setting up reading circle discussions or doing role plays. Roles can be assigned to individual students within the chat – a moderator, for example, could ensure that all the students participate by inviting comments from less ‘chatty’ participants.

These tools are suitable for students at any level and are available for courses with Online Practice and Online Workbooks at oxfordlearn.com:

—   Aim High
—   American English File, second edition
—   Business Result DVD edition
—   English File, third edition
—   English Plus
—   Headway Academic Skills
—   insight
—   Network
—   New Headway, fourth edition
—   New Headway Plus, special edition
—   Oxford Online Skills Program: General English and Academic English
—   Q: Skills for Success, special edition
—   Reach Out
—   Solutions, 2nd edition (International, Nederlands and Maturita)
—   Speak Now
—   Stretch