The language teachers had a lot of overlapping problems and situations. I spoke to several of them, and below are observations from Tatiana Styrkas (Russian) and Czech teachers Lenka Vlasáková, Ilona Šaršoňová Florianová, and Jiří Novák.
At the beginning….
Lenka: Panic. Looking for new ways. Different forms of communication.
Tatiana: When we were first told of the change, I panicked, wondering how I would teach remotely. I decided to take a white board home from NYU (with Marketa’s approval, of course). It was quite heavy – maybe 15 kilos- and I had to carry it onto an empty metro, then find a friend to help me carry it up to the fourth floor in my apartment building (which has no lift) … and now I have it here. It hasn’t been useful at all – I have used it a few times just because I have it here. Well, when you don’t know how things will work, you make strange decisions.
Jiří: During our last class at NYU, we created a WhatsApp group and we communicate using that. For me it’s been more flexible and faster than opening NYU classes. At the beginning I also used WhatsApp during classes – there was a lot of improvising those early days.
Ilona: I was surprised by how quickly and elegantly we switched to a virtual classroom. I’m grateful to NYU Prague for giving us time to adapt, helping us prepare with their seminars on how to work with Zoom.
Working together with other language teachers
Tatiana: In the middle of the semester, there was a Zoom session for all of the NYU Prague language teachers. It lasted almost two hours, and it was a very useful conversation – good on the practical level, as we have very similar problems, but also on the human level – to talk about how the students are coping.
Ilona: It was a new situation for everyone, and it was good to share experiences with other teachers – not only within NYU, but also with other teachers from other schools, who are all going through this now.
Struggles with Time Zones
Tatiana: I have four classes, and the different time zones make it hard – I have one class that finishes at 10:30 p.m. because I have a student from Australia and another from California.
Jiří: I’ve offered alternate times for some of the students and also short individual consultations with them. Of course they also have the recordings.
Zoomlingo?
Tatiana: Zoom works well for my language teaching- it’s good that I can see the students. I have small groups, and so there are huge faces on my screen, and they have to be focused during the entire class time. I think at least in some classes they might have learned more of the language this semester than usual. But I also think it worked because we already knew each other – if it was from the beginning of the semester, I don’t know how it would have worked.
Ilona: We were working with new technology and had to figure it out as we went along – both me and the students. Some interactions aren’t as effective as they are in a classroom – we lose the shared space, time, and context which you react to as you study a language- and you lose a lot of the humorous situations.
Lenka: It took a bit of time, but we got used to Zoom, We used Kahoot, Quizlet and Socrative a lot, but we really missed personal contact . It’s a strange feeling to hear students speaking Czech from so far away!
The Bedroom as a classroom
Tatiana: You see another side of them – one of my students sometimes has a dog on her lap during class. You have entered their house, you see their home environment. Some of them open up more than others. I don’t want to be intrusive, and sometimes it can be a bit tricky to find the balance.
Ilona: We had some problems with WIFI; one student didn’t have a functioning camera on his laptop, so usually we don’t see him. Another student has spent the past few lessons in the garden.
Lenka: We get to know not only each other, but also the space where we live. Sometimes we get glimpses of other members of the family who seem to be wondering what language is being spoken.
Exams
Tatiana: My exams are more individual, more focused on oral and a presentation of the final essay. I have adapted the written tests to the new situation with more open end questions and tasks.
Ilona: Unlike “normal times” we had oral exams for our midterm. Students will take the final test onlin. I usually do an oral exam with my students as a group conversation in a cafe, so I’m now trying to figure out how we can simulate a cafe on Zoom.
This semester, it’s been about a lot more than teaching a language
Ilona: It’s sad to think about how many of the students’ plans and hopes didn’t come through. Not only did they miss out on visiting other European cities, but many of them didn’t even have time to see some of the best places in Prague. When something like this comes up in class, you have to react in a very sensitive way.
Lenka : Even though we are farther away from each other, I have the feeling that we’ve gotten much closer than we were before.
Jiří: My motto of the semester: supportive, helpful and flexible. It’s not just about Czech.
Tatiana: I feel like the class is helping some of them on another level – beyond language – to deal with the new situation. Sometimes they talk about it with me… in Russian, of course!