Parents and carers sometimes can be difficult to deal with; they didn’t learn English like their children, none of the current digital tools were available to them. Many don’t understand the benefits of modern methodology. For this reason, it would be helpful for you and your students to start the year with a parent meeting. Show them the course book and all of the associated digital resources, and in doing so, gain their confidence. This is your chance to answer their questions, clarify their doubts, and give them the clarity they need surrounding your teaching methods.
Here are 10 tips to help you make that meeting a success!
1. Start by telling participants how varied your class is in terms of mixed-ability and learning disabilities, give them numbers for context. It is important that parents are aware that all students learn in different ways and at a different pace. Once they understand that, they’ll appreciate why it’s important to have such a wide variety of resources, including digital ones, to appeal to different learning styles and cater to differing special needs.
2. Walk parents through a unit, get them to listen to the dialogue, read the text, watch the video, and if the material you’re using has Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) resources try a couple of them too! This will give parents an understanding of the methodology. As well as this, showing parents the type of content and resources their children can use will show them that learning a language nowadays can be fun and effective at the same time. If you have a YLE course, do a song, a game, or a craft activity from the book with them in the same way you would do with your students. You only need to spend fifteen minutes or half an hour at the most on this. It’s a small investment in time but the benefits are vast. This will let parents feel the pleasure kids have working this way in class. Hopefully, then they will understand that although it seems that they are “doing nothing” because they sing songs and play games, they are actually learning and most importantly, they are enjoying learning.
3. Homework time can be tricky for parents for various reasons. Showing them which pages and resources are useful for supporting kids with homework is a great help. Walk parents through the course book, paying special attention to the pages where they will find resources like the Irregular Verb List, Pronunciation Guide, Grammar Reference, Vocabulary Bank, Glossary, Key Phrases Bank, and so on. Parents will focus on those pages when supporting their children with homework.
4. Our students may be digital natives (born after the year 2000), but that doesn’t mean that they are digitally literate as a study run by MediaSmarts (Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy) has demonstrated: “Young people are mistakenly considered experts in digital technologies because they’re so highly connected, but they are still lacking many essential digital literacy skills”. It’s important to support students at home and parents will play an important role here. Nowadays, most courses have online practice components on platforms, apps and/or e-books. Show parents how to download the e-book or app, and show them how to access and use the platforms. Parents must know how to do this. Navigating these digital materials is usually intuitive, but for the sake of clarity, you might want to show them the main navigation tools.
5. If you’re going to use the Learning Management System (LMS) functionality of the course, explain to parents the benefits. For example, you will have more time in class to get students to practise the language.
6. If students are going to use the online course materials autonomously, then you might want to give them an Online Learning Record like the one below (I was inspired by the “website learning record” of Headway and English File). Stress to parents how important it is that their kids keep this updated! This will help students to develop their study skills and to stay focused.
Example of an Online Learning Record
| ACTIVITY | DATE | SCORE | ACTION |
| U2 ex3 Vocabulary | 12th Oct | 4/10 | Revise vocabulary bank |
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7. Remember that students with learning disabilities will benefit enormously from using content in digital format. You might want to inform parents of SEN students what aspects of the digital content you have are especially good for them. For example, if you have content on the Oxford Learner’s Bookshelf the audio functionality allows you to slow down the speed. Karaoke-style scripts of the listening found on some coursebook e-books are also an excellent tool for some types of SEN students. If you are in Italy, the student’s website of OUP course books used in the country will have a dyslexic-friendly version of the readings in the course book. Click here for an example for English File Pre-Int. Also, some OUP eBooks offer the course book readings in a dyslexic-friendly format. When this option is active, you will see an icon and you just need to tap it to get the dyslexic-friendly version of the reading. I’ve added this information. This function is available on selected OUP courses, like English File, Headway or Insight.
8. Another important point to consider before you decide to implement the use of online resources is how parents feel about their kids being online. Some parents have reservations about internet safety so they prefer kids not to use the internet or have a negative attitude towards digital. This could be an obstacle for the student’s digital skills development which is crucial for the future of any child. It could also be an obstacle for you to carry out your lessons with online content. For this reason, it is a good idea to run parents through the online activities their children will be participating in, acknowledging their concerns along the way. Fortunately, there are ways to protect them online. Sometimes local internet providers will have free parental controls that filter out inappropriate content. Make sure you understand the concept of parental controls, and how parents can utilise them. Widespread concerns from parents on internet safety can be a real blocker, if you’re facing this you should dedicate time to walk through the above with parents.
9. To raise awareness of internet safety, why not join the hundreds of activities done globally on the occasion of the Safer Internet Day (SID)? It is celebrated every year in February to promote the safe and positive use of digital technology by students. The next SID will be on 7th February 2023 so save the date and start planning ahead. The UK Safer Internet Centre has a resourceful website where you can find online safety activities and more free resources for download. Do check for Safer Internet Day activities in your own country and join the bandwagon!
10. Finally, I would give parents a handout with platform URLs, links to tutorials (always check on YouTube to see if your digital tools have tutorials), info on online parental controls by local internet providers, information about the Safer Internet Centre in the area (if there is one), the online learning record, and the list of student’s resources (e.g. student’s website, vocabulary app, verb tables, etc). Think of this handout as a reference for parents to have handy when they need to help their kids with homework or revising for a test.
Gina Rodriguez is a Senior Educational Consultant for OUP in Italy. She is a CELTA-qualified teacher, teacher trainer and speaker. She firmly believes that being a digital native does not mean being digitally literate. Students need support in developing digital literacy both from school and at home. Getting parents and carers involved in it will increase the chances of school success and reduce digital issues.
