Teaching with Unlock Levels 2 & 3: Free Course

About this course

Move beyond simply completing coursebook exercises by examining how an activity helps learners use academic English. This short Cambridge teacher-training course contains an introduction and eight teaching-tip videos for Unlock Third Edition Levels 2 and 3. The public videos are free; access to the coursebooks and their digital resources is separate.

Course at a glance

What you’ll learn

• Explain the purpose of an activity and connect it to an academic language or skills outcome that learners can work toward.
• Adapt a task for learners who need different amounts of support while keeping a meaningful shared learning aim.
• Plan how learners will move from noticing a useful example to attempting their own spoken or written response.
• Use classroom evidence and learner work to decide whether an activity needs a clearer model, a different prompt or further practice.

Skills you’ll gain

• Academic skills teaching
• Task design
• Scaffolding
• Language development
• Activity reflection
• Teaching with Unlock

Course Overview

The training supports teachers working with the paired-skills academic English materials in Unlock. Cambridge’s teaching-tip series presents practical ideas for developing reading, writing, speaking, language and thinking skills. This playlist concentrates on the Levels 2 and 3 materials, making it a distinct training track from the Level 1 and Levels 4 and 5 playlists. Approach each clip as an example of a teaching decision: what learners need to notice, what they need to produce and how an activity can help them make that connection. The classroom begins with the shared introduction and follows the numbered clips without removing any lesson.

How the course develops

• The nine short videos form a compact teacher-development sequence. Watch the introduction and then Videos 1–8, recording one practical implication from each.
• Compare an idea with the learners and materials you teach. The aim is to choose a useful adaptation, not to assume that one classroom approach suits every group.
• Return to a clip after trying an activity. Reflection is more useful when you can connect the explanation with something you observed in learner work.

Use the searchable lesson list to revisit an explanation while planning or practising. Keep a short note of the idea you want to apply and return to it after trying it in your own context.

Who is this for?

This course suits teachers using Unlock Levels 2 and 3, academic English teachers and teacher trainees who want to discuss the design of practical language activities. It is especially useful when learners can engage with a task but still need help organising, explaining or extending a response. The level names identify the materials being discussed and should not be read as a Cambridge teaching qualification.

Before you start

Some experience planning English lessons is helpful. Bring a lesson plan or an activity you would like to improve. The relevant coursebook can support closer comparison with the examples, but the free video training does not require you to purchase the book just to view it.

Put the lessons into practice

Take one activity and draw a simple three-stage plan: what learners notice, what they try and how they review their work. Identify the language needed at each stage and the support you will offer. For one learner who needs more support, prepare a model or a limited set of prompts. For a learner ready for a challenge, add a reason to explain, compare or justify an answer. After the lesson, collect a small example of work and use it to decide which stage needs improvement. Explain how a teaching idea from the playlist influenced your revision, while keeping the activity’s learning aim clear.

This optional activity is provided by WikiFree for independent study. It is not a graded assignment from the instructor. Keep your working notes and separate evidence from assumptions so that you can review your reasoning as you progress.

Certificate / Assessment

The public video training is free to watch. Completing this WikiFree course does not include a Cambridge English exam, a qualification, academic credit or instructor assessment.

Use your notes and the optional practice to reflect on how you would apply the ideas. Completion tracking records study progress; it is not a marked assessment.

Frequently asked questions

Provider: Cambridge English. Videos play from the English with Cambridge channel on YouTube.