Online Language Teaching and Learning

     Face-to-face education, which is quite common around the world, has begun to lose its effect. With the impact of the pandemic, online teaching and learning has become widespread. In order to involve students in this process, we should consider some technological tools and platforms, as well as approaches.

     Firstly, in a distance language teaching environment, we should benefit from technology. In this environment, teaching and learning are based on technology. With some online educational tools, we can construct an interactive and collaborative language classroom environment. We can use some learning management systems like Moodle and Blackboard to create this interactive and collaborative learning environment. Besides, we can implement some Web 2.0 tools such as Google Drive, Edmodo, Animato. Also, we can benefit from Web 3.0 tools such as Second Life. Students have some different characteristics, and as teachers, we should consider these individual differences and support our students in distance education.

     Secondly, when we create this distance education environment, we should pay attention to two things in our lessons, one is the presence and the other is engagement. Presence includes social, psychological, and emotional aspects, and it is about thought, emotion, and behavior. To create a presence in the online environment, we should behave differently than we do in the face-to-face environment. We can create a social presence with many different digital tools such as Second Life and Flipgrid. Creating a presence in the online environment is very important to establish a successful learning environment for learners. Because presence is easily and naturally constructing in the face-to-face classroom, but teachers should make an effort to design online courses with the concept of presence. It will be efficient if we successfully integrate technology into the courses. Also, the other aspect is engagement. It is a part of presence, and it is the participation of learners, and learner-instructor interactions, learner-learner interactions, learner-content interactions in the lessons. To provide engagement and prevent fake engagement, we should make our lessons student-centered. Students should be active and engaged.

     Finally, in this online language teaching and learning environment, we can change our technique. We can adopt a new approach such as Flipped Classroom. The flipped classroom is the opposite of traditional teaching, and students are more autonomous. For example, they watch videos or read some articles about the lesson before the class, and then they join the class and do some activities. Students are more active than teachers. This approach can be used in online classes easily. We can use learning management systems such as Blackboard and Microsoft Teams, or we can use Google Drive or Edmodo to upload the lesson materials for students, and then we can use Zoom for the activities. Flipped classroom approach has many advantages. Lessons and contents become more accessible. Also, student collaboration and engagement are high. Students have more control, and they are more autonomous in their learning. This approach creates student-centered learning.

     In conclusion, in the online language teaching and learning environment, face-to-face education habits should be left behind and more technology-based lessons should be made. With approaches such as flipped classrooms, presence and engagement can be created in the online environment with various digital tools.