Abstract:

With the advent of new technological resources, teachers could find a variety of teaching methods to promote English learning and to shorten the tutor gap between distance and on - site education. Indeed, the EFL distance education program at Santo Tomás University provides possibilities to reach remote students of diverse regional and socio-economic status with difficult access in Colombia to learn English as a foreign language. One of the main challenges in this kind of education is to face synchronic versus asynchronous virtual tutoring sessions when students are encouraged to develop communicative skills. Pop (2017) highlights that the integration of technology in English learning increases collaboration and make students learning experience relevant, richer, and more engaging in personalized learning environments. In this sense, the planning of virtual tutoring sessions emerged from how to maximize appropriate strategies to catch students’ attention and to have long - term learning outcomes as well. These online tutoring sessions are developed by means of UDUTU interactive didactic units and EdPuzzle videos about cultural and trendy topics.

The structure of the virtual tutoring session is thought on five steps (Denman, 2007) where the students are prepared to produce English effectively:
1. Warming up: Students are familiarized with specific vocabulary about the topic through interactive games or H5P activities.
2. Presentation of new videos: First, a video without edition is presented to get the film´s topic about updated and cultural issues such as fracking, the use of drugs, gender identity, and sex education. Then, students watch again, but now it is an appealing Edpuzzle video by solving open and close questions where students interact with their tutor actively.
3. Practice: Students develop oral drills or scripted speaking practice with enough grammar tools for being able to communicate orally in modeled situations. Here the tutoring sessions let students deal with change, risk, success, and failures.
4. Application: At this point students participate in real-life practices about interesting and polemic situations using MyToondoo application.
5. Follow – Up: This is one of the most productive steps due to the fact that tutor gives timely feedback orally during these synchronous sessions.

This reports is based on a case study research because it addresses to describe an intervention and a real academic context in which it occurs. In this EFL Distance Program, synchronous virtual tutoring sessions are being implemented until now. What is more, the virtual campus lacked of original materials for supporting E- tutoring meetings, even, they are not designed on the market due to they do not belong to the commercial use. Implementing the design of UDUTU interactive didactic units entails a hardworking organization based on students’ learning needs and cultural background especially if tutors might like to encourage students ‘communicative outcomes which make them aware of the English role as a way to interact in real-life situations and enrich their professional fields to get academic and personal achievements.

References:
[1] Pop. From Simply Teaching to Teaching with Emerging Technologies. Studia Universitatis Petru Maior - Philologia, (23), pp. 129-135, 2017.
[2] Denman. & J Adelson-Goldstein. Step Forward 3: Step-By-Step Lesson Plans with Multilevel Grammar Exercises CD-ROM. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 20-190, 2007.

Keywords:

E-tutoring, Edpuzzle, interactive didactic units, online applications.