I’ve been teaching online lessons to several adults since 2015, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked. In fact, when I recently asked them, they told me they actually prefer having their lessons online. When the lockdown began last year, like every other teacher, I found myself having to teach all my lessons online. From my perspective, I wasn’t too concerned about this transition, but many of my pupils, especially the younger children, had to quickly adapt to this new way of learning. Here are a few thoughts from my experience over the past year.
Teaching strategies don’t have to change.
In my teaching, I demonstrate a lot and ask questions rather than simply telling my pupils what needs to be done—something I’m sure most teachers would agree with. This approach has translated easily to online lessons. Younger children, in particular, tend to lose focus if I talk too much, so demonstration and call-and-response activities work especially well in an online setting.
The pupil becomes more independent.
Whether younger or older, pupils often rely on the teacher to point to the correct place on the page or show the right position on the keyboard. This becomes a bit trickier in an online lesson. However, I’ve noticed that all my pupils have become better at locating the correct note on the piano (often by ear) and finding specific bars on the page. Very young pupils (around age 5) might still have some difficulty reading the music, but this is usually solved with a bit of parental support.
We cover more ground.
I travel to most of my pupils for their lessons, and the first few minutes are often taken up with chit-chat while I take off my coat and get my notebook out, etc. In an online lesson, there’s no need for these interruptions, so we can start straight away and make better use of the lesson time. I’m not sure if all of my pupils prefer online lessons to in-person ones (and honestly, I’m not sure I want to know just yet), but I’m already convinced that online lessons are an effective way to teach and learn an instrument.
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