Teaching English Online: Free Course

About this course

Plan online English lessons with a clear purpose, manageable technology and opportunities for learners to use the language. This short free Cambridge course contains a welcome video followed by a numbered series of practical teaching tips. It covers technology choices, whole-class support, writing, speaking, learner focus, checking work, peer assessment and reading authentic texts.

Course at a glance

What you’ll learn

• Choose technology by the learning activity it needs to support and consider what learners can realistically access and use.
• Plan online activities that involve the whole class and give learners a clear reason to participate.
• Build a writing routine that includes planning, drafting, checking and a useful form of peer response.
• Adapt speaking or reading practice for an online setting while keeping language use and learner needs central.

Skills you’ll gain

• Online lesson planning
• Technology selection
• Online speaking practice
• Writing process teaching
• Peer assessment
• Authentic-text reading

Course Overview

The series starts by asking which technology fits the teaching purpose, then considers how to support the whole class. The writing-focused clips address planning and drafting, encouraging learners to check their work and using peer assessment. Other tips examine speaking and language use in an online classroom and keeping the learners’ needs central. The final two clips form a paired explanation of encouraging learners to read authentic texts. All ten videos remain in their original teaching sequence, including the welcome and both parts of Tip 8. The course offers practical starting points rather than a complete training programme for a specific software platform.

How the course develops

• Begin with the welcome and technology tip, then connect each subsequent idea with a particular learning activity you already teach.
• Follow the writing tips as a process: learners prepare a response, draft it, check it and use feedback. Avoid treating each stage as an unrelated task.
• Keep both parts of the authentic-text reading tip together when planning. Use the source sequence to revisit the complete explanation.

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 is for English teachers moving lessons online, tutors running remote language practice and educators improving a blended teaching routine. It also suits teacher trainees who want a short introduction to online classroom decisions. The ideas need adaptation to the age, level, access and learning purpose of the group.

Before you start

Basic teaching knowledge and familiarity with a web browser are helpful. You can watch the videos without purchasing a platform. For practical use, choose the communication tools available in your setting and prepare an activity that does not depend on features your learners cannot access.

Put the lessons into practice

Take one face-to-face English activity and turn it into an online plan. Write what learners need to do, how they will receive instructions and how they will share a response. Choose a simple way to check that everyone understands the task before beginning. Add one stage for planning or reviewing the language used, and decide how peer feedback will be focused. Finally, prepare an alternative for a learner with limited access, such as a text-based response or a shorter asynchronous task. After the lesson, record which part supported participation and which technology or instruction caused avoidable difficulty.

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.