How To Organise Your Online Lesson

A ACI CERTIFIC ATES PR AC TIC AL GUIDES
HOW TO O RGANISE
YOU R ONLINE LESSONS
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.3
INDEX
2. Planning your lesson . . . . . . p.4
3. Before the lesson . . . . . . . . p.5

What to consider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.5
Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.6
Communication tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p.7
Synchronous communication tools . . . . . p.8
What synchronous communication
tools should allow you to do. . . . . . . . . . .p.9
Asynchronous communication . . . . . . . . .p.10
Asynchronous communication tools . . . .p.11
4. During the lesson . . . . . . . . . p.12

Learning materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.12
Teaching materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.13
A few tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.14
Warning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.16
5. After the lesson . . . . . . . . . . p.17

Howework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.17
Where & how should homework
be submitted? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.18
Marking homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p.19
Self correcting worksheets . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 20
A ACI CER T I FI C AT ES P R AC T I C A L GUI D ES
1. Introduction
It seems that online learning and teaching have now

become the ‘new normal’. Contrary to expectations,
many teachers are finding that working online can be
pretty demanding and stressful. What can we,
teachers, do so that our lessons prove to be more
effective and organised?
Expectation Reality
3
2. Planning your lesson

As with face-to face-lessons, planning becomes crucial
in this context. More so given that the multitasking
nature of online teaching allows small room for
improvisation. When planning an online lesson, we will
need to get ready and organise what will happen
before, during and after the lesson itself.
Before During After
4
3. Before the lesson

What to consider
Audience
Synchronous tools
Asynchronous tools
Learning materials
Teaching materials
5
Audience
One of the first things we should ask ourselves is who
the audience of our lesson will be. This ‘new normal’
will probably include, together with the students
themselves, other family members as our audience and
we, teachers, should find a way to use this to our
advantage.
In the case of parents taking part in their child’s
lesson, it could help if previous to the lesson we
clearly set a role for them. Sending parents a set of
previous instructions on how the lesson will work and
asking them for specific things to do will help them
find a ‘useful’ role in the lesson.
6
Tools
What tools are you going to use?
Online lessons will now include two different and

marked stages: a synchronous stage held in real time
and an asynchronous stage in which we will be sharing
materials and activities for our learners to manipulate
on their own, each of them at their suitable time. The
most important implication for these two stages is
that we will need to choose synchronous tools such as
video conference apps for our live lessons and some
other tools to keep interaction going in an
asynchronous mode.
Synchronous vs
asynchronous
communication
7
Synchronous
communication tools
Fortunately, there are plenty of apps and programmes

that allow for synchronic communication. Some of
these are paid services such as Adobe Connect or
Blackboard Collaborate, but there are many others
that work on a Free or a ‘Freemium’ basis such as
Meets, Skype, Zoom, Discord or What’sApp.
8
Synchronous communication
tools should ideally
allow you to...
1. Work from your computer or any mobile device
2. Do screen sharing
3. Share the sound in your device
4. Mute participant microphones and control the
cameras
5. Schedule meetings
6. Have students work in pairs / groups
9
Asynchronous
communication
The next decision you need to make is to choose an

asynchronous communication tool that enables you to
communicate and share materials and activities with
your learners and which allows them to share their
work with you. Again, there are many LMSs (Learning
Management Systems) available. Some of them are
free like Padlet, Edmodo or Google Classroom, others
are fully paid like Blackboard and there are also
Freemium platforms such as Schoology. Some of these
platforms need to be administered at an institutional
level (moodle, for example) but others are very easy to
use and manage by individual teachers (e.g. Edmodo).
The greatest advantage they all have is that they allow
the teacher to centralise and unify communication
both with individual students and with the classroom.
10
Asynchronous
communication tools
11
4. During the lesson
Learning materials
What will your students need
during the lesson?
Another important step to be taken is to consider

what our students will be needing during the lesson.
This refers, on the one hand, to the materials they will
be using – books, copybook, pencil case, etc – but also
to the preparation activities they will have to complete
in order for the class to flow more effectively.
This means that there will be content which will need
to be ‘flipped’. When planning, then, we need to
consider whether it is really worth spending
synchronous time doing passive activities such as
reading, listening or watching a video or whether we
will profit a lot more from students doing this work
prior to the synchronic meeting. This flipping of
contents will imply sharing these activities with our
class along with clear, step by step instructions, before
the synchronic meeting.
12
Teaching materials
Finally, we need to consider the teaching materials we

will be using during the live lesson and prepare them
accordingly. Most publishers offer digital versions of
their books that include the text as well as audios and
extra resources. These are extremely useful.
In addition to this, preparing a powerpoint
presentation or similar will enable teachers to
centralize content and to present it neatly. In many
cases these presentations will also work as a digital
blackboard that can afterwards be shared with the
class. Do not forget traditional classroom tools such as
your list of students, some realia in the case of young
learners, gestures and body language, etc.
Digital books Presentation
13
A few tips
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but simply a list

of tips that have worked for AACI Teachers. Most
importantly, a balance needs to be kept between
routines, which are crucial in making students feel
confident and comfortable in this environment, and
mental breaks or short activities that help change the
pace of the class. Online learning can be exhausting
both for the learner and for the teacher so activities
like playing a short game or solving a puzzle provide a
much needed mental break.
Remember also that some students can turn out to be
camera - shy and the only way to help them participate
will be not to be over reliant on volunteer
participation: when asking a question or eliciting
information, make sure you provide thinking time and
do not hesitate to call each student at a time so there
are ample opportunities for them to use the language.
Hi! Hello
Hello Hi!
14
Tips
Make sure the apps / documents you need are open

beforehand
Keep a list with your students’ names at hand
Make sure you use some sort of whiteboard or blank

document for class notes
Give students preparation time
Try not to go only for volunteers
Develop working routines
Provide mental breaks
15
Warning
A word of warning: video conference tools tend to

have a delay which means you have to allow for some
waiting or thinking time before students respond.
Also, there have been many concerns lately as regards
online safety. To avoid possible safety issues, when
scheduling a meeting, make sure you include a
password and, if possible, enable a waiting room
where students remain while you allow them into your
session. In addition to this, it is a good idea to train
students to use video conference tools wisely
following some netiquette rules: turn your camera on
while you’re speaking, mute your microphone while
others speak, avoid using capital letters for a full
sentence in the chat box, etc.
D E L AY
16
5. After the lesson

Homework
In face to face contexts, it is pretty common for

students to simply do their homework which they
submit to their teacher the following lesson. This will
change in virtual environments: the walls of the
classroom are expanded in these environments and
you may feel it is not appropriate to spend valuable
time from your live lessons simply checking the
answers to your students’ tasks. Homework in this
context, then, has to be planned carefully.
17
Where & how should

homework be submitted?
Using an LMS will allow teachers to centralise homework

submission as well as marking. It is sometimes worth
taking a few minutes in your live lesson to show
your students where and how to submit their tasks.
18
Marking homework
Finally, marking homework has always been a

gruesome task. The way homework is assigned will
have a direct impact on how marking will be carried
out. On the one hand, online work makes
resubmissions or rewriting more accessible for the
learner, however, providing feedback and reading
some online documents can be really time consuming
and hard on the teacher.
19
Self correcting worksheets
Fortunately, there are many tools that allow for self

correction of some simple, more mechanical exercises.
It may take some time to prepare interactive
worksheets with tools such as Google Forms,
Liveworksheets, etc, but that time will be saved when
it comes to correction and marking. This will enable us
to focus on feedback for our learners rather than on
the marking process itself. Most of these tools are free
and include tutorials to help you build them on your
own, so they are really worth giving a try.
Liveworksheets Cambridge English

Write&Improve
Google Forms wizer.me
20
aacicertificates@aaci.org.ar
www.aaci.org.ar
July 2020

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A ACI CERTIFIC ATES PR AC TIC AL GUIDES

3. Before the lesson . . . . . . . . p.5

4. During the lesson . . . . . . . . . p.12

5. After the lesson . . . . . . . . . . p.17

It seems that online learning and teaching have now

2. Planning your lesson

Before During After

3. Before the lesson

Online lessons will now include two diﬀerent and

Fortunately, there are plenty of apps and programmes

The next decision you need to make is to choose an

4. During the lesson

Another important step to be taken is to consider

Finally, we need to consider the teaching materials we

Digital books Presentation

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but simply a list

Make sure the apps / documents you need are open

Keep a list with your students’ names at hand

Make sure you use some sort of whiteboard or blank

Give students preparation time

Try not to go only for volunteers

Develop working routines

Provide mental breaks

A word of warning: video conference tools tend to

5. After the lesson

In face to face contexts, it is pretty common for

Where & how should

Using an LMS will allow teachers to centralise homework

Finally, marking homework has always been a

Self correcting worksheets

Fortunately, there are many tools that allow for self

Liveworksheets Cambridge English

Google Forms wizer.me

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