A Day in the Life of an Online English Teacher

This blog post is all about a typical day for me teaching English on Zoom. I teach mostly children on Zoom but some adults too. I plan each class individually because each student has different speaking goals and they are all different levels. I use a range of different teaching methods and make my classes engaging and interesting. My focus is always on getting the student to speak as much as possible and providing personalised corrections.

Wednesday 27th February 2019

Class 1:

My first class of the day was with a ten year old boy in France. This student has been with me for over a year. He has gone from hardly being able to speak English, to being an excellent speaker. Pronunciation has always been difficult for him so we always spend extra time on this.

Class 2:

Next was my class with his big brother who is 13. This boy is amazing at English and has excellent vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. He needs extra extensions to really challenge him. I now use adult level materials with him and give him a wide range of topics to increase his vocabulary.

Class 3, 4 and 5:

After that, I taught a whole family who live in the UAE. I taught the mother, father and both daughters. This family have had 3 hours a week with me for over a year. I absolutely love seeing their progression. The parents mostly want to discuss issues that relate to their work as teachers.

Class 6:

I had lunch away from my computer and then went back at my desk to teach two sisters who live in the Netherlands. The youngest girl went first. She has excellent speaking skills for her age but she really needs to expand her vocabulary in different areas. She is young so we learn in a fun, visual, physical way.

Class 7:

Next, I taught her big sister. Recently we have been working on irregular verbs in the past tense and she is starting to become really good at this now. We practise the past, present and future tenses and talk about a range of topics using articles, short videos and images online.

Class 8:

Next, I taught the sisters’ cousin in the Netherlands. Lots of my students come to me because someone has recommended my classes, which is lovely. This girl can speak fluently because she has taught herself but she has never actually studied grammar so we are working on that. We are also working to get her out of her comfort zone and talk about topics she doesn’t usually talk about. It’s important for me to challenge my students.

Class 9:

After that I had my youngest ever Skype student who is only 3 but very clever! This student lives in Spain and her mum helps her have classes with me via Skype. As she is so young I used lots of props and materials that are very visual. She listened to me and repeated words. It’s amazing how much she can understand too!

Class 10:

Next, I taught a young girl in Germany who has a very low level of English so we have been working on the basics. Again, we used lots of visual props and images online to explain not only vocabulary but also basic grammar and simple sentences. She has only had 5 classes so far but she has improved so much already!

Class 11:

My last class of the day was with a very smart, eager young Russian boy who tries his best every class. He has excellent grammar and vocabulary but needs to work on fluency and pronunciation. He loves cars so we often talk about cars and technology in my classes. I found articles and pictures that I know he would like and we had excellent conversations about them. I provided corrections and extra vocabulary to help him improve.

At the end of the day I felt so lucky to have spoken to so many amazing children (and two lovely parents!) around the world who are an absolute pleasure to teach. I felt proud of them and of the way they have improved since they started their classes with me. I’m honoured to be part of this growth and progression.

I genuinely care that each one of them progresses as much as possible. I don’t pressure them, I just encourage them.

I love my job!

I hope this was useful. If you think your friends would like it, please send this to them or share it on Facebook. Thank you.

I also provide free trials for Zoom online English classes for children. Email me for more information: info@teatime-english.com.

P.S Make sure you follow me on Instagram where I post daily videos.

Good luck with your English!