Back
How to Teach Languages Online with a Whiteboard: 6 Activities
In this article
- How do you teach vocabulary on an online whiteboard?
- How do you practise word order with sticky notes?
- How do you teach pronunciation online?
- How do you run a dictation in an online class?
- How do you correct writing live?
- Conversation prompts on the board
- A sample 50-minute language lesson
- Frequently asked questions
- Try it in your next language lesson
To teach languages online with a whiteboard, combine seeing, hearing and doing: build colour-coded vocabulary boards, let students order sticky-note sentences, model pronunciation with short videos, run dictations, and correct writing live in two colours. Hand students the pen every few minutes so they produce language instead of only listening.
These six activities work for any language, from beginner to advanced, in one-to-one lessons or small groups.
How do you teach vocabulary on an online whiteboard?
Teach vocabulary with one board per topic, grouping words around an image and colour-coding them by word type. Write nouns in one colour, verbs in another and adjectives in a third, and add a quick sketch next to each word. Educastic lets you insert images, including by drag and drop, so a photo of a market stall or a kitchen becomes the centre of the board with words around it.
Keep each topic on a separate board tab. By the end of a unit, students have a set of visual vocabulary pages, and Educastic lets them download the session's resources as a PDF to revise from.
How do you practise word order with sticky notes?
Practise word order by writing each word of a sentence on its own sticky note and asking a student to put the notes in order. Give them drawing access so they can work on the board themselves. Then make it harder:
- Add a distractor word that does not belong.
- Change one note (tense, gender, plural) and ask what else must change.
- Turn a statement into a question by moving only the notes that need to move.
Educastic lets the teacher give or take back drawing access for each student at any time, so you can pass the activity around a small group one student at a time.
How do you teach pronunciation online?
Teach pronunciation online with short video clips of native speakers that you pause, mark up and replay. Educastic's video player keeps play and pause in sync for everyone, so the whole class hears the same sentence at the same moment. A simple routine:
- Play a short sentence and pause.
- Write the sentence on the board and mark the stressed syllables or linked sounds.
- Ask each student to repeat it, then play the clip again to compare.
Because the teacher controls play and pause, you can stop exactly where the sound you want to teach appears.
How do you run a dictation in an online class?
Run a dictation by reading sentences aloud while students write them on the board, each in their own colour, so you can compare every version side by side.
You can also flip it. Educastic includes speech to text for dictating into a text box, and it currently recognises English, so it suits English classes. Ask a student to say a sentence and see what appears. If the words on the board are not the words they meant, that is a useful clue about which sounds need practice. Use it as a prompt for discussion, not as a pronunciation grade.
How do you correct writing live?
Correct writing live by putting the student's text on the board and marking it in separate colours for errors, rewrites and the student's own fixes. Ask students to write a short paragraph before class, or write it in a text box during the lesson, then work through it together:
| Colour | Used for |
|---|---|
| Red | Errors the student should fix themselves (underline only, no correction) |
| Green | Your rewrite of a phrase that is correct but unnatural |
| Student's colour | The student's own corrections |
Underlining without correcting makes the student do the thinking. If you work from a textbook, upload a longer text as a PDF and annotate it live in Educastic; Word and other documents convert to PDF on upload.
Conversation prompts on the board
A picture, a short scenario or three questions on a fresh tab is enough to start a speaking activity. Write useful phrases on the side of the board as they come up, so students can reuse them in the same conversation. Quieter students can type a phrase in the chat before they say it.
A sample 50-minute language lesson
This 50-minute plan combines all six activities in one lesson:
| Minutes | Activity |
|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | Warm-up question on a fresh tab, answered aloud or in the chat |
| 5 to 15 | Vocabulary board for the new topic |
| 15 to 25 | Sentence building with sticky notes |
| 25 to 35 | Pronunciation with a short video clip |
| 35 to 45 | Writing task corrected live |
| 45 to 50 | Summary tab and homework |
Frequently asked questions
Can I teach in Spanish with Educastic? Yes. The Educastic interface is available in English and Spanish, and you can write in any language on the board.
Can students work on sticky-note activities themselves? Yes. Once you give a student drawing access in Educastic, they can write on the board and draw arrows between notes. You can take the access back at any time.
Can I play videos for the whole class? Yes. In Educastic the teacher plays a video in the video player, and play and pause stay in sync for everyone.
Is Educastic free for language teachers? Yes. Educastic includes all of its teaching features in the free version.
Try it in your next language lesson
Open the Educastic online whiteboard, build a vocabulary board and run one sticky-note activity. For more ideas, see these interactive whiteboard activities.
