Saturday, 11 August 2012

Determining a breakthrough teaching mechanism for English online tutors





You might have observed that in all my blogs I have always given priority to innovation in education methods. The simple reason for that is we are moving into a revolutionary phase where things will become outdated quite quickly. Hence, there is always a need for something new and exciting to make students interested in the subjects. More so; in case of theory subjects like English where students do not find it interesting to read the whole bunch of chapters to get the story. The tedious job of an online tutor is not only to depict the information in the English chapters through interesting means but also deliver knowledge to the students in such a manner that they want to study the chapters again and again. Now this is a challenge especially for young children in Std. I to VIII. As the age of a child increases the curiosity factor decreases. Hence, this is the period when children want to learn something different. So the tried and tested methods of teaching will never work for these children.

I know if you are a tutor yourself, you are wondering and saying to yourself I have been a teacher all my life and now you come up with your own thesis claiming the online teaching mechanism has flaws? You are right my friend. Although you have been teaching since a long time things change and people change. The same teaching mechanism cannot be used for the current generation as they are quite smart and know everything about the new technology. They like to experiment a bit since early childhood and learn through their own experiences. From what I have learned so far I can say very bluntly that we have never learned the art of understanding the minds of a child. The only thing we are interested is in making our future generation a bunch of crammers who go to college get their degrees but at the end of the day when you ask them basic questions that are relevant in the practical world they are clueless. We do not want our future generation to be book-wormers we want them to learn through practical experiences. More so by making them experience the same things that they learn in theory.

One way of doing that is through animation-based e-learning. Now I know this idea looks ridiculous but believe me if you are a child aged 8 years of age you will love to see the Tom and Jerry series on cartoon network or Duck tales series which used to telecast earlier. Now the only reason I am giving these examples is because every story in English language in primary education has a moral behind it. If we try to depict it in an interesting manner in similar lines to these cartoon series it will make students see the animations again and again. This way; online tutors do not have to spend much time on making students understand the topics. Moreover, students can revise the chapters by going through the animated series of chapters again and again thereby reducing the burden on parents. Students will study without any force and will literary ask for more and more chapters in the digitalized/animated format. The quizzes can then be taken after a specific interval to gauge the success of this concept. I feel that this can work and will prove to be a major hit in future. Children as it is are not happy with books.

Practically speaking, I see so many toddlers carrying loads of books in their schoolbags. It is so ridiculous but their own weight is far less than the weights of the books. Isn’t it our duty to see that the children are not overburdened with studies? This is the age which we as mature adults remember now and share our experiences with our peers and friends saying those were the happy days without any pressure. Now, if your own child is burdened with the kind of education which is being provided will you be happy with it? Moreover, I have also seen parents sending their children to private tutors which increase the burden on children tremendously. Because now they have do over-time by completing the class work, homework and the tuition work. Is n’t it a sin to burden a child with so much of pressure? Can’t we creatively think about an education system which is free from books and provides practical exposure to children so that they can become future managers, leaders and so on?

Story-boards are also interesting concepts wherein you make children learn about the subjects through stories in the form of sequential animated images. But if we make it even better by providing them with animated cartoon characters to depict the chapters it will be a great hit amongst children. Even the parents would love it. Online tutoring will improve because now you will have to increase the creativity quotient and think out-of-the-box to resolve the concerns of the children differently than the traditional ways of communication. But that is something which I will be discussing in my next blog. For now I will sign off with a statement which has made me think about this concept quite seriously:

“OUR FUTURE GENERATION IS SERIOUSLY FACING THE FLAK RIGHT NOW IN TERMS OF LACK OF INNOVATIVE EDUCATION TECHNIQUES. HENCE, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO THINK OUT-OF-THE-BOX TECHNIQUES TO INCREASE THE BENCHMARK OF ONLINE EDUCATION AROUND THE GLOBE.”


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