July 2002

ISSN 1537-5080

Vol. 16 : No. 7< >

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Editor’s Note: In April of this year, MaryKay Stewart received the award: Distance Learning Teacher of the Year 2002: K-12 at the eLearning Conference and Expo in Washington DC. This article reflects her experiences and interactions with students in her French class taught via Starnet satellite television from San Antonio, TX.

Distance Learning from a Teacher Perspective: My Side of the Camera

Mary Kay Stewart

“Boy, you’re really good at French,” he said.

“Yea right, almost as smart as you, huh,” she retorted.

Sounds just like the banter of any classroom anywhere, doesn’t it? Well, it is a snippet of conversation between students hundreds of miles apart learning French with me on StarNet, a non-profit distance learning network broadcast at the Education Service Center Region 20 in San Antonio, TX. These students receive the class by satellite, desktop or on DISH TV.

They watch my class “live” and telephone into the studio enabling them to interact with me and other students on the phone each and every day. This interaction creates a unique community of learners; one based on voice rather than visual input. Of course the students see me, but I know them only by voice (and a photo mailed in early in the year) and voice is how they know one another.

It is both interesting and somewhat startling to realize the kind of psychological bonding that can occur in such an unusual situation. The students clearly have both trust and affection for me as well as the others in the class and are willing to use the various electronic methods to nurture these relationships. They email and post messages to our chat room that demonstrate the kind of banter we usually imagine or experience in a classroom where students sit near each other and share on a daily basis. My students know one another, not so much by name, but by voice and school name and they often ask about others, request that they “get on” and try to “outdo” one another in a kind of creative competition to be first to get the correct answer.

The fact is that we all laugh a lot. Early in the course, I chose to laugh and enjoy the errors in pronunciation and to gently tease the students. At the time, I knew I was taking a chance; after all, it would be easy to misstep and not see the hurt in someone’s eyes. However, I smile constantly as we chat and find that my students read this exactly as it is intended and enjoy the light-hearted interaction which would occur in an ordinary classroom. In this kind of warm atmosphere, it is easier to motivate students, to insist that they study more and even to gently scold them; though they are many miles distant.

In fact, our successes here have been noteworthy. Many of my students have received college credit in French after taking their school’s orientation exams and they were both surprised and pleased to realize just how much they had learned. The excitement expressed in the emails they have sent me from those colleges attest to their enthusiasm as well as their level of accomplishment.

Many of the successes are directly related to using the internet as a class tutor. I have posted web pages which give them review tests (with answers at the end), vocabulary games, and most importantly, class notes. My notes are in the form of PowerPoint presentations posted by semester. These presentations go well beyond the book and explain the grammar concepts in depth, provide drill and practice with new vocabulary and re-enforce previously presented concepts. Students can access this information on their schedule (often in the wee hours of the morning) and use it to go over any concept that is not clear to them. They are fairly fervent about these slides and will call me if they are not posted promptly! Many students have told me that they depend upon this form of review and tutoring which allows them to comprehend and re-study at their own pace while still following the class.

I was astounded to discover a large number of non-student viewers and I have received emails from many individuals who watch the classes on DISH TV. These are people whose desire to learn French comes from necessity as well as interest. My first such email came from a woman confined to a hospital for a lengthy stay who not only was taking and enjoying French, but insisting that her surgeon spend a few moments practicing with us! A young woman from California who referred to herself as a “random StarNet viewer” wrote to tell me that she has a French boyfriend, is preparing for the US Foreign Service Exam, and watches early each morning with her mother. She says that her mother “is very proud that she can count to five now, although her “1” sounds like she’s being decked in the gut with a frying pan and her “4” sounds like another word for a camp bed”. A gentleman in Ohio, who works a night shift, tapes the classes and watches to supplement his continuing education class in French. He adds: “I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy the program, and let you know how much I am excited to be able to get such useful material from TV, which is largely a cultural wasteland”!

These comments from adults, and the enthusiasm from enrolled students, make it clear that distance learning has an important and underrated place in our society. As a land of passive TV viewers, we have come to accept the television as sheer entertainment (at its best) requiring nothing more of us than keeping our eyes open. Yet, it clearly has another, much needed role to play; that of educator. Given teachers of knowledge and talent with the ability to engage the learner, we will find a whole new world of life-long learners eager to improve their skills in any number of fields……and large numbers of them will do so in front of a TV or computer.

Mary Kay Stewart
StarNet French
Education Service Center, Region 20
San Antonio, TX
MaryKay.Stewart@esc20.net