Please meet Diana!
Diana Monzón started teaching English to elementary school students in Guatemala when she was 18 years old. A couple of years later, she began teaching adults and young children while also working as an interpreter and translator. It’s been over ten years since she started her teaching journey, and now she even gives Spanish lessons, primarily to young professionals.
While teaching in person, she quickly realised that her classes needed to be very dynamic to engage her students, and she tries now to keep her online classes with this same passionate energy.
She lets her students lead the classes and tries to make the experience as natural as possible to achieve their goals:
“I like to get to know each student. If they’re talkative, I let them guide me. If they’re quiet, I encourage them with questions. It’s great to adapt each class and make it unique."
“Some of my students are more visual, and others like traditional classes. I make sure on our first day to let them know that I will adapt to them and not them to me, so it’s important to get to know them and their interests. I also ask them for feedback at the end of each class, so we go back to those notes the following week if they have questions that weren’t covered.”
What’s your favourite thing about being a teacher?
"I started teaching English, and I loved it, and now I prefer teaching Spanish. I really like that I get to connect with people from all over the world."
"I’m constantly learning from my students, culturally speaking. I have students from Germany, Dubai, the Netherlands, the USA and Canada, and I learned so much from them."
"I also like that I get to be part of my students' life goals. For example, they sometimes get a new job opportunity because they learnt to speak Spanish, and it’s satisfying to know that we have worked towards that together."
Can you think of something unique your experience as an online teacher offers you?
"Working as a virtual teacher allows me to travel to the lake or at the beach and still be working. I have my own schedule, and I can be flexible with my activities."
What are valuable tips and tricks you've learned from your experience teaching online that changed the way you're approaching classes now?
"I tell my students in advance what we’re going to learn so they know beforehand. I also don’t go over one-hour classes because I noticed it’s the max students can keep engaged."
What advice would you give a new teacher/tutor to help them start their own online teaching business?
"Do your research, and work on having a friendly website. Don’t be afraid to start and dive in! You will never know if it will work for you if you don’t try and make it happen."
Also: "if you have friends you can collaborate with, take advantage of that. A graphic designer, someone with marketing knowledge, etc."
Do you have any creative ways of using our Virtual Classroom features for your classes?
"I really like using the chatbox to correct spelling mistakes or introduce new words. I also use the grammar tool a lot. It’s very handy."
"Screen sharing and the ability to draw and add pictures are great too!"
Thanks, Diana, for sharing your story with us!
Diana’s school is called Spanglish, and you can reach out to her Facebook page here.
This series focuses on highlighting some of our valued teachers' stories. LearnCube has incredible educators from around the globe using our virtual classroom software daily, and by sharing their experiences, we hope to inspire many more to start and grow their businesses.
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