Back to class in person, first ever since Covid-19 spread

Thursday 9 July 2020

at 7:07 AM.

in Bangkok

Hi there,

Today is  the first day I  am going to return to school once again.  Since mid-March 2020 when the language school I work with had to tempolarly close, all classes including mine have been suspended, following the government's order to different types of businesses and establishments due to the spread of corona viruses in Thailand.

I am very happy to meet my student (today is my private class with one student) although still cautious about the virus and the risk.  Seeing students, discussing various topics with them and questioning and replying them in person are totally different from and  much better than doing such online.  Speaking from my direct experience, for I have returned to teach through online classes since last month after the school informed that some of my students requested for my online class.

And I agreed on the requests despite I am really not a big fan of new IT technology.Give me the best smart phone and what I can do is  calling, sending messages and recently, learning how to check my e-mail via the phone.

Still, I hurried to self-study how to use various measures such as google class, zoom, loom, etc, through Youtube clips and from my IT expert friends, absolutely for survival like others in this world of work. It's not easy at all for a person like me to excel that in such a short period with those methods, but after learning by doing and experiencing trials with errors, I could handle them with less and less frustration.  Okay, I survive.

During the past months I have observed and been aware of what happened to my students and myself in online classes and the results of our teaching and learning. There are some big differences compared with learning in face-to-face class including students' attention in class and understanding the topics.  I would say I prefer face-to-face classes a lot better although staying at home for online classes is such a convenient life.  Maybe, too convenient.

Soon I am leaving for the class, and I would love to meet my student, a university student who wants to improve her writing.  There are several things to update for both of us.

I know that online teaching is already a trend and becomes a new normal that I must get myself used to it as long as the deadly corona virus infection still hang around us  and no ones knows exactly for how long it would be.

Gigi