Teaching online had for years been quite common, especially in the TEFL industry. And then covid came along and the ability and willingness to teach online became not just an asset but a requirement. The influence of covid on teaching has largely waned but it certainly hasn’t vanished and many teachers, programs and institutions have maintained online teaching as part of their offerings. No matter what some doomsayers may say there is absolutely no danger that online teaching will replace in class learning any time soon, but being able to offer high quality online lessons has become an important and sought after skill and something you should aim to add to your TEFL CV, honestly and with confidence.

Even for schools and directors that have no intention of transitioning permanently to online teaching, covid taught them that having staff that are able to teach online can save them in a crisis while also creating new potential revenue streams and educational opportunities. The first time I was called upon to teach online was in South Korea, just a few weeks after covid struck. The school where I worked was completely unprepared, had no online learning platform ready to go, no lessons, we teachers had to develop everything ourselves. In fact, the first couple weeks were spent creating online lessons and materials, just so we’d have something to teach. We then had to navigate classroom management without an actual classroom to manage. How to we keep kids engaged when they’re literally sitting in their own bedroom, surrounded by their toys? What do we do when mom or dad interrupts a lesson or are obviously helping their child with the work?

Online teaching is a whole other beast and should be approached as such. But it’s also become an integral part of a modern teacher’s toolbox and this is especially true of the teachers of English in the TEFL field.

First, well, you need something to actually teach. Whether you’re working from a book or developing your lessons from scratch, I highly recommend creating materials of your own. This will not only ensure that you are 100% familiar and comfortable with the materials, but it will also help you develop your own unique voice and perspective. It’s subtle but something your students will come to appreciate, even if only on a subconscious level. Developing your own materials—and tweaking them after you’ve run them through a lesson or three—will also allow you to scale them up or down based on your specific students’ likes and needs.

If you haven’t begun teaching and are still looking for a TEFL job then developing your own materials may come in handy at the interview stage. Interviews for TEFL jobs always begin online and, though it isn’t especially common, some hiring managers will ask for a demo lesson. With prepared materials suitable for online teaching you’ll be ready to go.

Then there’s the fact that, if you create them carefully, your online materials could very well be adapted to a classroom environment. Honestly, many of the more recent lessons I’ve created for my current classes were based on models I developed while teaching online. Online materials tend to be more visual, more colourful and engaging, they’re designed to mimic the students’ online experience, and transferring these aspects to the classroom can have an attention-grabbing effect.

It is a lot of work. You might spend hours creating a single lesson. But once the first few are done, once you’ve developed a template and workflow that suits you, it will go much faster and you’ll find that lessons can be reused or adapted to new themes or topics.

As mentioned, materials for teaching online should be visual. In many cases the students will not see you at all or, if they do, your image will be relegated to a tiny window in a corner of their screen. Their attention will be on the main window and you want that space to be as engaging as possible. This doesn’t mean filling your lesson with GIFs and animated stickers, but it does mean going beyond a few blocks of text and the odd image.

I tend to use Google Slides (my preference overall) or Powerpoint (actually, I use Presentation by LibreOffice, a free and open source alternative to the Microsoft Office Suite). I create slides that progress logically through the lesson. Though I rarely use GIFs or animations, I will include many images and will often make only minor changes to slides, treating them like frames on a film strip. For example, a slide might present an image and some text, with the image in black and white, but the next slide shows the exacts same content with the image now in full colour. This can be done to illustrate a point or make a joke, but the effect is that it keeps the students’ attention.

I also sometimes pepper my slides with Easter eggs, little hidden details that I don’t comment on but might ask thee students about at the end of the lesson. Eventually the students learn to look for these Easter eggs and, by ensuring that the hidden items are somehow tied to the contents of the lesson, students have no choice but to pay attention if they hope to find all the Easter eggs.

The point is that Google Slides and Powerpoint (or Presentation) allow for creativity and flexibility. These also present well via Zoom, my own preferred platform for online teaching, and they can also be used in any classroom equipped with a computer and screen or projector.

Other useful tools found in the Google suite of apps include Jam Board and Google Classroom, though I don’t use either of these as often.

Honestly, I don’t structure my online lessons any differently than I do those for my classroom. Though it depends on my students’ level of ability, I tend to begin a lesson with a game, activity or discussion, typically tied to the theme of the lesson, though this connection is often loose. This is simply a warm up and an opportunity for students to start thinking and speaking in English. I then present the topic of the lesson, whether it be a specific grammar point or a scenario to practice speaking, keeping things fairly brief but ensuring that the students understand where we’re headed and what’s expected of them. I then give them some work to do, in groups or pairs if there’re enough of them. We then review the work and their results. I then make a few corrections or review certain points, as needed, and give them one more exercise to complete before finishing with a brief discussion.

So, for your online lessons, you’ll want your slide show to follow the same progression, starting with a game that introduces the topic in broad strokes and gets them talking, then a few slides to work through the lesson itself, and then some clear instructions for the exercises you’ll be tasking them with. Group work will be done using Breakout Rooms in Zoom, though if you’re giving a private lesson obviously this won’t be necessary. Then finish up with a topic of discussion that recaps and features whatever skills they learned or practiced.

For a great lesson planning resource check out English Lesson Planner.

Unless you’re working for an established company with its own pre-made materials you’ll be building your from scratch. You can use TEFL workbooks as a basis for your lessons if you can find good ones—I like the ones by Cambridge—but you don’t want to simply transfer the book to your slides and call it a lesson. Again, making your lesson as engaging as possible is key.

If using a book, I will typically use the exercises only as inspiration but I’ll choose my own topics. For example, I’ve created lessons based on a particular episode of a television or streaming series. As homework I have the students watch the episode (I first ensure that they have access to it through Netflix or another streaming service) and then build my lesson around language or a theme explored in the show. This can be especially useful for adults or more advanced students, but kids’ shows are often suitable for younger students and beginners. The key is to find a single language point to focus on. Don’t jump from a grammar point used within the first 5 minutes to a different aspect of syntax that appears at minute 8 and then throw in a comprehension question about a plot point introduced in the final minutes of the episode. Find a recurring theme or language point that you can come back to throughout the episode and lesson.

I’ve found that travel shows, like Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix, are especially good for adults and older children. This is especially true if you can have them watch an episode that explores a location they are familiar with or would like to visit. For example, with Mexican students I had them watch the episode in which Phil visits Mexico City and the had them tell what else he should have seen, done or eaten. With a student who was planning a trip to Thailand I had her watch the episode in which Phil goes to Bangkok and Chiang Mai, so that the lesson served both to teach her travel English but also helped her plan her trip.

Oddly enough, Friends seems to be especially popular with adults who use TV to improve their English. I have also used The Office and Superstore in the past. Your students’ abilities must always be taken into account, however.

Though I might occasionally show a video or an entire episode in a classroom I don’t tend to do so as part of online lessons. I’ll assign the episode as homework instead. Beyond this, however, I rarely give homework at all, especially to adults who tend to be busy with many other obligations. If teaching literature, however, I might assign a few pages or chapters to be read for the next lesson.

Teaching literature online can be a challenge but the key here is to keep things visual while focusing on comprehension and vocabulary. I usually will ask students to make a list of words they didn’t understand or aren’t sure about but I’ll also have my own list of words I think they might’ve had trouble with. The rest of the lesson will be comprehension questions, always open ended and preferably leading to discussion. I’ll also try to open and close with games or activities that are loosely related to the text we are studying but not necessarily about the text itself. For example, if we’re studying The Hunger Games, the opening activity or discussion might be about dystopia, the future, sports, or the Roman games, with plenty of images.

As mentioned, when teaching online the students may not see you at all. They’ll see only your slides or presentation. For this reason it can be easy to let our energy levels drop and get a bit complacent in your presentation. With a dozen or two dozen faces staring back at you it’s impossible to forget that you’re teaching a class of expectant students. Online, though, it can feel as though your teaching into a void. So ensure that you keep up your enthusiasm throughout every lesson. Speak clearly and with energy. This is especially important when teaching kids. With them you’re almost more of a children’s entertainer with your own educational web series. Watching YouTubers can be helpful. Not only are they pros at presenting information online in an engaging way but many of your students likely watch them anyway. In fact, you can even ask them to list YouTubers they enjoy and then check them out to get some ideas.

Another good way to practice your online presentation skills is to use a language exchange app like HelloTalk or Tandem. Many of these are free and simply involve chatting with someone who wants to practice their conversation skills in English. You wouldn’t necessarily be going through your lesson but simply conversing with someone online, on your laptop and not your phone, just as you would be giving a lesson, can be good practice.

Finally, become as familiar as possible with Zoom. It is an excellent tool but it isn’t prefect and does have its limitations, limitations you’ll want to know about before you start teaching. There is also a learning curve for using Zoom beyond its most basic functions. I did my CELTA certification online using Zoom and anytime that I stumbled during a lesson it was invariably because of some technical issue, with Zoom not quite doing what I wanted or expected it to do. As I became more familiar and comfortable with the tool my lessons went much more smoothly.

And there you have it: the basics of teaching English online. I didn’t cover how to find TEFL jobs teaching online but I will do so soon. The information here is stuff you’d want to know and figure out before you begin looking for TEFL jobs, anyway, especially given that, as mentioned, it’ll help with the interview process. If you’ve taught online before and have other tips or suggestions, or if you haven’t but have questions, let me know.