Future, 2E: Making remote teaching and learning easier

Make remote learning easier with Future

By Gosia Jaros-White, Marketing Manager, Pearson ELT USA

After making the emergency transition from face-to-face to remote instruction last spring, many programs continue distance learning as the pandemic keeps its grip on the world. Remote instruction poses many unique challenges for English language programs. These challenges include how to encourage student engagement, promote interactive communication practice, balance synchronous and asynchronous learning, build a classroom community virtually, and deliver remote instruction that is effective on a range of student devices.

With the new edition of Future, teachers can engage, support, and challenge their adult learners at a distance by leveraging the program’s considerable digital and print resources. Future not only prepares learners to meet their life, career, and educational goals, but it also helps instructors deliver high-quality engaging lessons remotely, both synchronously and asynchronously.

It all begins with the Pearson English Portal – a powerful platform that delivers Future digital resources to instructors and students, such as MyEnglishLab, eBooks, and the ActiveTeach. With these digital resources, you can transition your Future course online and ensure your students have the resources they need to continue learning.

This handy toolkit offers tips and suggestions for teaching remotely with Future, 2E.

Future eBooks

Reader+ eBook
Reader+

Students don’t have their books? No problem! For studying on-the-go, the Future eBooks are the perfect solution. Delivered on the Reader+ platform, the eBooks can be accessed on a computer, tablet, or smart phone. The Reader+ application allows students to read and interact with rich digital content and multimedia assets through highlighting, annotating and many other study and reading tools. Users can store all their eBooks and notes in one place and access them at any time, as all of their content gets synced across multiple devices. Designed with offline capabilities, Reader+ offers a perfect solution for areas with low bandwidth or unreliable Internet access.

The eBooks are also a perfect resource for synchronous instruction in a remote setting. Teachers can share pages from the eBook using Zoom capabilities (or other web conferencing platforms) and use multiple tools to zoom in, highlight, add text, and play the class audio.

The Reader+ app can be downloaded from the app store.

MyEnglishLab

MyEnglishLab
MyEnglishLab

MyEnglishLab is an easy-to-use learning management platform that delivers additional Future course content digitally. MyEnglishLab is an excellent resource for asynchronous instruction, delivering engaging exercises, videos, and tests in one place. Students can practice each lesson’s content in an interactive environment with instant feedback and tips to scaffold their learning. Teacher can take advantage of the MyEnglishLab platform to assign homework, monitor performance, and pinpoint areas for improvement.

Using MyEnglishLab

ActiveTeach

ActiveTeach
ActiveTeach

The ActiveTeach is an offline tool that delivers student book pages, audio, video, additional activities, and teacher resources. You can use ActiveTeach with Zoom or other web conferencing platforms to share the Future book pages with your students. In the classroom, it can be used a computer and projector or with an interactive whiteboard to bring the book to life. With ActiveTeach you can zoom in, zoom out, and focus on specific activities. You can annotate pages, embed links, and attach files. You also have access to full class audio, printable worksheets, interactive exercises, assessment activities, tests and interactive whiteboard tools. The ActiveTeach for Future comes as a downloadable zip file within your course on the Pearson English Portal.

Watch this video to learn how to install and use the Future ActiveTeach

Pearson Practice English App

Pearson Practice English app
Pearson Practice English app

The Pearson Practice English app is a mobile app that delivers Future audio and video resources on smart phones. Students and teachers can easily access their course resources anytime, anywhere. The app can be downloaded from the app store and unlocked with the same Pearson English Portal login and password.

Additional Teacher Resources

Teachers can feel fully supported with Future teacher resources. Available on the Pearson English Portal, these resources include additional worksheets, Teacher’s Edition pages, robust assessments, standards correlation documents, and more.

Watch this video to learn more about how to access all the available teacher resources for Future.


To learn more about Future, access additional videos and resources, please visit our Future catalog page.

Our team is dedicated to helping you achieve success with Future, 2E. If you would like us to help you get started, please contact your dedicated Pearson ELT Specialist at pearsoneltusa.com/reps.

Teaching online with Future: tips and resources


By Gosia Jaros-White, Marketing Manager, Pearson ELT USA

Future, the most comprehensive adult English language program, incorporates digital tools and technologies that make online, blended, and distance learning easy.

With MyEnglishLab, digital books, and the ActiveTeach, you can easily build an online curriculum, for both synchronous and asynchronous delivery.

It all begins with the Pearson English Portal – a powerful platform that delivers Future digital resources to instructors and students, such as MyEnglishLab, new digital flip books, and the ActiveTeach. With these digital resources, you can transition your Future, course online and ensure your students have the resources they need to continue learning.

We have put together a roadmap that offers detailed suggestions on how to teach each lesson in Future in the online environment. 

You will find a few general suggestions below. To access and download the complete roadmap, click here.

General Tips for Teaching Online with Future

Online Class (Synchronous Learning)

1. Download the ActiveTeach into your computer or USB drive. Use the screensharing option using a conferencing platform such as Zoom or Google Meet to display the student book pages for all your students. The ActiveTeach offers tools to make the book pages come to life, such as zoom-in, highlight, post-it notes, as well as audio and video. Note: With Zoom, students won’t be able to hear the audio unless you check Share Computer Sound when you hit the share button.

2. Students can use their printed books or the digital flip books to follow along.

3. For extra practice, they can also use their printed workbooks. You can display pages from the workbooks during your synchronous class (workbook pages are available in the Teacher Resources in the Pearson English Portal).

4. For group discussions, use the breakout room option in Zoom to put students in groups. You can also create classes in Google Classroom where students collaborate on projects and engage in discussions.

5. For more engaging and collaborative practice, you can use additional resources available in Teacher’s Resources in the Pearson English Portal, such as Team Projects and Multilevel Communicative Activities. You can display the PDFs of these activities during your synchronous class in Zoom or Google Meet, or you can upload them into MyEnglishLab for students to access.

Independent Study (Asynchronous Learning)

1. Use MyEnglishLab to assign practice activities before and after your synchronous class. MyEnglishLab for Future includes activities for nearly every lesson in the student book, including writing and speaking.

2. Hide any course content in MyEnglishLab that you prefer students not access initially. The assessments are already hidden by default.

3. If you would like to remind students of pending assignments a day prior to your next class meeting, consider using the notes feature on the calendar.

4.  You can also upload your own materials in MyEnglishLab, such as notes and presentations under Your Settings à Manage Resources tab.

5.  You can use MyEnglishLab to send messages to students, as well as check task completion, overall and individual scores, and time on task, and grade student-generated content such as audio or writing.

6. Go to the gradebook and review the results to assess what skills individual students may need more instruction on. Use this information to target teaching areas.

7. Students can use their print workbooks to practice on their own. They can use their Pearson Practice English App to access the audio and video resources.

8. Consider having “office hours” on Google Classroom or WhatsApp chat. Make the times of the “office hours” clear so students know when they can come to you with questions and challenges

9. Assessing students: There is a number of assessments you can assign to students in MyEnglishLab. Note that they are not visible to students until assigned.

10. If you assign activities in MyEnglishLab, give students time to work through content. During this time period use the DATA tab to assess understanding, successes, and struggles. Use the DIAGNOSTIC tab to assess time on task, score by skill, time on each section, number of attempts, and individual and overall scores.

11. If you are using an LMS like Canvas or Blackboard, consider using the Discussion Board, BLOG or WIKI feature for collaborative work. On the Discussion Board, you can post any questions for the entire class to discuss. Students can also post orally. BLOGS are great to serve as a learning journal, and WIKIs make great vocabulary lists. Students can add examples to new words you post or add their own new lists.

For lesson-specific tips on teaching online with Future, click here.

Additional resources

True Stories + Future = Perfect Partners!

True Stories is a six-level reading series that has been an enduring favorite of teachers and students for 25 years. These popular texts consist of human-interest news stories that are geared towards adults.

The series can be used as a stand-alone reading course or as a complement to Future, a six-level adult English course that equips learners with transferable academic, workplace, and English communication skills.

The color-coordinated book covers make it easy to match the levels in True Stories with the levels in Future.

Why are True Stories and Future perfect partners?

Pair units in Future with thematically related units in True Stories to:

  • accelerate your students’ progress in reading
  • recycle and reinforce the vocabulary of the topics
  • prompt students to share their own “true stories” related to the topic
  • enliven your lessons with believe-it-or-not reading selections

Sandra Heyer, the True Stories author explains the rationale between this association between Future and True Stories:

“I teach reading in the four-level Adult ESL program in my community. I go from level to level with True Stories and teach a 20-30-minute reading lesson in each class.

When I walked into a classroom with the books, often the teacher asked if I had a story about the topic they’re working on–health, work, housing, etc. I usually did. The teachers and I noticed that a lot of the vocabulary in the life-skills unit reappeared in a theme-related story, and that often the story got students talking about their own experiences related to the theme. Another plus was that the story seemed to change the energy in the room—that the story about the woman with the bad knee being chased by a bear, for example, offset the seriousness of a lesson on illnesses and injuries. So, the teachers and I began to coordinate our lessons.”

We want to share this partnership with you. Therefore, we have created handy correlation documents to help you quickly match units in Future with complementary units in True Stories.

Download them here.