Taking your students on virtual tours

Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash                 

Have you ever taken your students on a virtual field trip? I've done some research into this and written and spoken about it several times before, as many of you will know. It's one of these things that really only works online.

During the first lockdown here in the UK, I started taking my students on virtual tours.  I had two main reasons for doing this. Firstly, the students were all very isolated in a foreign country. They were stuck at home and only had the opportunity to leave their accommodation for a daily walk of one hour’s duration. It was bad enough for me, so I could only imagine how hard it must have been for them. Student numbers started to drop off at the Zoom classes and there was a general lack of motivation and engagement with their learning. Of course this was totally understandable. The students were very much missing the social aspect of the experience that they had hoped to have at the school. There are usually cultural trips and other fun social events planned on a regular basis. Many of them felt very disillusioned and even depressed.

I was trying hard to think of ways of making the lessons attractive and trying to think of how I could give them a unique experience online, that they would not have had the opportunity to participate in if the normal face to face lessons had been taking place.

I began to notice more and more wonderful resources being made freely available online – not for English Language Students- but for the general population, who were also suffering badly as a result of the restrictions of lockdown. |There were such delights as museums being made available to visit online, historic and important buildings virtually opening their door for no cost and attractions such as zoos allowing virtual access to many wonderful animals.

I decided that this would be a fantastic resource to use with my learners and I did some research into what was available and then proceeded to prepare for a series of regular virtual tours for my learners.  It was very successful and I have continued to take learners of all levels on a weekly cultural virtual tour.

The activities I planned really depend on the individual place that was going to be visited, but the general format is to have some kind of warmer activity to create interest, followed by an initial look around the place to orient them and act as a kind of guided tour. After that I usually use a WebQuest structure where the students are working in pairs or small groups to find out information, complete a quiz or fact find to prepare a short presentation for the other groups.

We usually have a kind of round up at the end where we will have a discussion about our impression of the place and whether we enjoyed it and why/ why not. The students are encouraged to draw comparisons to similar attractions in their country and to perhaps describe them to their classmates.

There are many sources which can spark off an idea for a virtual tour if you look around on the internet. The possibilities are amazing once you start knowing what to look for.

Some of my all time favourites so far have been  Google Arts and Culture. Over 2000 cultural attractions and museums have been made publicly available and I have found many inspiring ideas there from all over the world.

Additionally, here are some ideas to get you started from Oxford University Press ELT if you've never tried this before. If you're teaching online it's a perfect opportunity to take advantage of free resources like this.

HowTo Take Your Students On A Virtual Field Trip | Mireille Yanow | OUP(oupeltglobalblog.com)

I’m going to describe in more detail one of my most successful virtual tours. I sometimes adapt this slightly, depending on the exact students and the context etc, but this is the way that I usually do it.

Virtual tour of Buckingham Palace:

This resource can be found at Virtual tours: Buckingham Palace | The Royal Family

I would say that this is my favourite virtual tour, as it never fails to fascinate the students. It is a visual masterpiece and there is so much to see and talk about in the magnificent and luxurious decor.

I have found that the most successful way to run this activity is to ascertain whether in fact the learners have any idea where this building is situated. If not, I use one of the many wonderful ideas suggested by Russell Stannard of  www. teachetrraining videos.com  We use Google Earth  and zoom in to establish its location in central London, then drop the man in the grounds of the palace and have a look around.

If the students are already familiar with this information,  I will start with a visible thinking routine -See, think, wonder (What do you see? think? wonder?) and they type their answers in the chat box.

Next, there will be a short quiz to lead in, with the answers again being typed in the chat box for maximum participation by all.  Questions such as ‘How many rooms does Buckingham Palace have? (The answer is 775 in case you are interested!)

The main part of the activity involves the teacher sharing the screen and the whole group have the opportunity to discover that there are three very different rooms available to view. Descriptions of these rooms are elicited , such as the colour and materials used, the type of furniture and the objects such as portraits. This should be adjusted to the level of the students. It is a wonderful opportunity for some vocabulary building.

Next the learners are split up into small groups and each group has to come to a joint decision about which is their favourite room.

After that the link is shared in the chat box and the students go into breakout rooms to look around that room together and click on all the objects in that room to find out more information (there are about 5 object in each room that are available to do this). Then they select two of the clickable objects that they find most interesting and prepare a summary of them to share with the whole group.

After a reasonable period of time has been allowed to enable the groups to have a good look around and a productive discussion, the students are brought back to the main room, where each group gets a turn to share the screen and act as the tour guides for that room. They will give us information and try and answer any questions.

Finally, each student will vote for their favourite object out of the ones discussed and give their reason for the decision. They also have an opportunity to tell us about any palaces or similar luxurious buildings that they are aware of in their country. They will be trying to make use of some of the new vocabulary in this activity and apply it to other contexts.

 

If additional time remains (although this has never happened yet) the students are encouraged to scroll down to the section on the website which is entitled, ’Buckingham Palace Today’. There is information to be read and a quiz which I have prepared will be shared on the screen. Depending on the level of the students, they will either complete this individually or in pairs or groups.

Additionally, this could be shared in the chat box and they could  be encouraged to complete it at home as a follow up to the virtual tour.

I always encourage the students to have another look at the website later on in their own time and to explore some of the other fascinating things- such as listening to the queen speaking (for listening practice).

This activity is equally well suited for mixed -level as well as students who are more or less at the same level as each other. I would advise that the minimum level of proficiency should be about B1, in order to get full advantage out of the resource. However, it would be possible to adapt it for lower levels if a bit more support and scaffolding was built in to the plan.

I do hope that you will feel inspired to take your students on a virtual trip. If you have any questions or comments, I would be more than happy to answer them.