NANJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Liu Lan (pseudonym) was undoubtedly unwilling to sit in front of a mobile phone camera instead of standing at a podium when it was requested that she give livestream lessons.
The new school semester has been postponed, but the courses have not.
The 40-year-old high school teacher had no experience in livestreaming and found herself suffering from stagefright.
"I can still remember the awkward silence when one day, after I spoke for a long time, it turned out nobody bothered to tell me that I forgot to turn my mic on," Liu said.
What she had undergone was much better compared to the miserable experience of an older teacher who forgot to close his chatroom after the e-class was dismissed and livestreamed all night long.
"The sudden change of teaching online was, more or less, too much for me," Li said.
As a class advisor, Liu was burdened with contacting students and their parents in various chat groups, sending and collecting assignments, as well as closely viewing feedback of her students' positions and health conditions due to the novel coronavirus epidemic.
She knew nothing about livestreaming before the school carried out an urgent training on how to use Alibaba's communication app DingTalk, originally an office tool for white collars.
"I got nervous sweating during my first 45-minute lecture on prose reading since the graphics card of my laptop broke down, thus I had to use my phone," Liu recalled.
Liu also decided to do all the talking later on, after she read on the Internet that some prankish students would make fun of their teacher during livestreaming class by sitting motionless to fake a break in signal, thus escaping roll-call questions.
"In one class when I had warmed myself up in the first five minutes, a student gave me a WeChat voice call saying that I forgot to turn my mic on," Liu said. "That was quite embarrassing."
To improve her teaching, Liu started to watch recorded online courses given by well-known teachers in the province as well as those from education institutions and found their courses more targeted.
She works longer hours now, busy preparing lessons and sometimes starting her livestreaming class at 7:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m.
"My daughter is always complaining that I play with my phone," Liu said. "But I tell her I am working."
