I have been an online English second language teacher for just over a year. What have I noticed in that time that differentiates the online teaching classroom from the live classroom? There is one word that sums this up better than any other. Atmosphere. This relates to the fact that the teacher is not in the same room as the students. So the student can walk off, can eat their dinner, can spin on a chair. And there aint much you can do about it. This is all related to different students learning capabilities.

In the live classroom you would still get the students who couldn’t sit still. But the desk is a great controller of movement. Once a student is sat at a desk there is an unconscious submission to the power and control of the desk. No such control exists in the online virtual classroom. This causes issues of control. The main difference is the atmosphere. There is something very disconnected about the online classroom. In the classes I am doing for the company I am working for there is a real dearth of songs, videos and injections of interesting material that creates and maintains an atmosphere in the class.