A new experience...from the distance ⌨

Now that I see the bright side of the pandemic, I realize that there are many options for us to keep going with our lives as "normal" as we can. It all goes down to the Internet. To be honest, before this happened, I used to see the Internet as something to entertain myself, to chat with people and to get information for my homework. But now I see it as the main tool through which I can keep myself in the picture about what's happening in the world, and beyond that, as the only source to keep on studying my major and working as a teacher. Who would've thought of that? Not me. 

It never crossed my mind that I would actually give online classes to real students at any moment, but I ended up becoming a virtual teacher and that came like a bolt from the blue for me. Once more, I jumped into the ocean by getting this new experience of doing what I love from the distance. 

I have been doing this for 3 weeks now and I must admit that it is not so bad as I thought. I used to think that online classes were not as effective as face-to-face lessons in a classroom where the teacher has full control of the environment. In a nutshell, I used to underestimate e-learning until I challenged myself to do it.

Here's what I can say by now: 

Even though I am a"young" teacher who can show off her knowledge on social media, apps, and websites, I had to be humble enough to take on an online teaching course and accept that I needed to prepare myself in this field. I did so and now I'm happy to say that I'm in the third week of an online course by Cambridge University. There,  I get to interact with teachers from all over the world, help each other to sail through this radical change and learn many didactic techniques that if it wasn't for this pandemic, I probably would never know about.
Besides having taking up on this course, I study business English in an online course given by the British Council which I find pretty useful and hopefully, it'll make my CV stand out like a sore thumb!😉

In addition to my online courses that I'm taking for pleasure, I've become capable of managing my time to keep up with my classes of the major, online of course, and interestingly enough I still have some time for myself! 

Going back to my new experiences as a virtual teacher, I still feel nervous sometimes for not being capable of managing an online class but at least for now, they all have been successful. :) I've learned how to use several platforms to give classes, I heard other colleagues' opinions and tips to teach in this way and more importantly, I've had the chance to experience a new way of interacting with my real students and to become a flexible kind of teacher who adapts to the environment. 
You have to be clever about how to exploit the tools that the platform offers so that you can achieve your learning objectives and you need to be approachable enough to make your students feel comfortable to speak as if they were in a classroom... from the distance.

Finally, I know this is just the beginning of a whole learning experience for me, as a student, as a teacher, and as a human. Maybe we all can take out a lot of this rather than seeing it as a regrettable memory for the future. I'm looking forward to learning a lot more and to become a better professional and a better person. 

Stay safe everyone, Allisson. 💜