Lizzie, a Lead Teacher with the ELC, uses a new Promethean board to complete an exercise from one of our textbooks, writing the answers to the exercise on the screen so the entire class can see it.

Over the past five years, the English Learning Center has invested time and energy into learning how technology can add to our day-to-day lessons. This journey has led to new discoveries, improved the quality of our classes, and opened doors for our school.

A First Step: Online Classes

Online classes began out of necessity and are an important way our school utilizes technology. Having never offered online classes before, our school shifted completely online at the start of the pandemic. However, some students shared that online classes made it easier to attend consistently. Based on this feedback, we started offering both online and in-person class options in 2021, doubling our class offerings. Since then, we have synchronized our online and in-person classes to follow the same curriculum. This means students are learning at the same pace regardless of how they attend class, and can switch between online and in-person formats as needed. Offering online classes also impacts our volunteer teaching population – we now have volunteers who teach virtually from across the United States, and even from other countries.

Technology in our In-Person Classrooms

Tech improvements haven’t been limited to our online learners. A few years ago, we installed two touch-enabled displays called Promethean boards that increased possibilities for in-person learning. Our volunteer teachers use these boards to display and write on digital copies of our textbooks, browse the
internet, and play videos and audio tracks. This year, with a grant from the Blaze Foundation, we installed more boards with upgraded software in our
classrooms. Now that every room has a Promethean board, we can begin to fully integrate the technology into the way we teach classes.

New Opportunities

These investments recently created opportunities to explore new ways of providing low-barrier English classes. Earlier this year, we organized online classes for employees of a local business who were interested in learning English. Our new Promethean boards also allow us to explore offering hybrid classes that both in-person and online students can attend. We’re excited to continue exploring how technology will add to our students’ learning experiences.