Certified English teacher and language coach

Online language lessons have a lot of advantages, and they are just as effective as traditional, in-person classes. I’ve grown to genuinely love this type of teaching. Let’s collect some of the upsides, shall we?

Advantages

1. The learner and teacher can be very far from each other, even in different countries.
2. The teacher doesn’t have to rent a classroom or use their home for the lessons.
3. The learner doesn’t have to spend time, money and energy on travelling to the class.
4. The lesson can take place even if one party is coughing a little bit, without anyone getting any infenctions.
5. The lesson can take place at any time of the day (or night).
6. Younger learners feel “at home” in the digital and online world.
7. “Older” learners and teachers can learn a lot about digital tools this way.
8. Anyone can eat garlic before the lesson 🙂

Platforms to use

There are several platforms one can choose from. I use Skype, which is considered to be low-tech, but it has all the features I need for a lesson:

• teacher and learner can see and hear each other in the video call
• there is a chat window where both parties can write
• you can attach and send files in the chat window
• you can send links as well
• there is a screen-share function

Other platforms include Blackboard, Google Hangouts, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and appear.in.

How to make it work

What many people don’t know is that you can do just about anything in an online lesson that you would do in an analog class. Let’s see how.

1) Talking about a picture: the teacher can either send a photo as attachment in the chat box, or they can share the screen. The learner sees the picture and talks about it. Then they can discuss topics connected to the image.

2) Reading: again, a text as word document or pdf can be sent. Alternatively, the text can be shown with the screen-share function. Several tasks can accompany the reading, just like in an analog class.

3) Practice exercises: both learner and teacher can write in the chat box, so it can function as an exercise book or a whiteboard. The teacher can correct what the learner writes. The teacher can also send worksheets and if it’s a word document, it’s very easy for the learner to write in it.

4) Discussions: for certain discussions, debates and complex topics it’s a good idea to use Powerpoint Slides. These can be shared on the screen. The learners can also create their own presentations with Powerpoint which they then present in the online lesson.

5) Videos: the link of a video can be sent in the chat box, too. The teacher and learner can watch the video simultaneously. In this case it’s a good idea to mute the call itself, so that the sound of the two videos won’t create a chaos. The usual tasks can then follow.