Yvonne asks:
My name is Yvonne and I live in London, UK with my husband and 3 children.
I have a background in Digital media and eLearning (BSC & Masters degree)
I taught Business Information Technology and Social media marketing for 6 years in a London University. I am currently on a one year break from lecturing so that I can focus on my language teaching online. I am of Igbo heritage and a native speaker of Igbo language ( one of the main languages in Nigeria). I learnt Igbo as a second language when I was 6 and studied it all the way to high school.
My journey into language teaching started because I wanted my children to learn Igbo language. There are little or no modern materials to teach them , and although they can understand a bit – we wanted them to start speaking it.
I made some videos and put on YouTube , then eventually started a website to teach others Igbo. There is a huge demand of Igbo language teachers and people who want to learn Igbo are scattered all over the world.
My target market include people of Igbo origin who grew up outside of Igboland, non Igbo spouses of Igbo people, people who want to learn Igbo for commercial reasons, Igbo people who would like their children to learn Igbo and so on. I have had people sign up from India, Australia, Nigeria, although the highest number of signups are from the US.
I tried to use the concept of TPRS and CI – but it is easier to teach some one face to face in a classroom than to teach them from the other side of the world.
My main problem is how to get the people I am teaching to start speaking it and not just study since people are at different levels and most of them get laughed at by friends and family.
What I really wanted to ask is – If you were going to teach a language to people scattered all over the world and were using video, audio and text, How would you structure your lessons to successfully incorporate TPRS and CI and how would you ensure that you actually get them to speak the language ( get feedback). I mainly use colour coded words and sometimes dictations. I also give comprehension style questions which doesn’t really get them to speak .
I can’t do Skype because it would not be practical enough to teach everyone. People have different schedules and time zones.
Some links to a few videos I have made are:
http://www.screencast.com/t/ydJUGWskmN
http://www.screencast.com/t/jrSVhsAJESG
I have also done a couple of videos where I put a picture of one item , and then given about 15 possible sentences about that particular object.
e.g This is a cup , Is this a cup? Where is the cup? I am looking for my cup. My cup fell on the floor. The red cup is mine…. and so on.
I’ve also thought of having webinars every fortnight, and inviting them to send in questions – problem is that I cannot tell them all to participate, team participation in webinars can easily get out of hand.
Any suggestions on how to structure it all successfully will be welcome.
Best Regards,
Yvonne