When Technology Fails, a Good Teacher Improvises

A good online lesson with a good teacher will teach what it’s supposed to. However, a good teacher knows that ninety minutes spent in front of a screen is not the same as ninety minutes in a physical classroom. After all, in a face-to-face setting, the teacher has a much better chance of seeing whether a student is genuinely engaged in the lesson or silently zoning out.

With an online student, the teacher can never be completely sure whether the person on the other end of the camera is absorbing Czech grammar, dealing with urgent work emails, or just browsing the internet. An online student mustn’t get bored. In order to learn a complex language effectively, they must engage actively and constantly interact.

So, the lesson is meticulously prepared. The teacher rubs their hands with glee, looking forward to what a lovely session it will be today, especially with that brand new interactive material they spent hours creating. They switch on the computer, the lesson begins, the teacher clicks on the link that’s supposed to lead to that enticing application and… the screen displays: ‘Error loading application’. Or perhaps: ‘Server connection timed out’. And it doesn’t matter at all that the platform was working perfectly just ten minutes before the lesson started.

A good teacher has to stay calm, but believe me, they are racked with frustration, stress, and, above all, disappointment. It could have been such a groundbreaking lesson! But because they are a professional, they have to be able to handle this too. At CLT, our tutors always have a "Plan B" ready—a backup conversational exercise, an offline worksheet, or a quick role-play game that requires zero technology. Adapting on the fly is what separates a standard online tutor from a truly exceptional one.