4
A guide to
teaching young
learners online
Making the shift from the physical classroom to the remote
classroom can seem intimidating, but it’s really much easier than
you may think.
Here, we look at some of the challenges involved and how you
can overcome them to deliver successful online lessons for young
learners.
Preparation
Onboarding
Students
A crucial part of ensuring that your remote lessons are successful
is the process of ‘onboarding’. This is the process of training your
students to use the functionality of the remote classroom and
ideally this should happen before they start the course. With young
learners, it would be best to have a caregiver present when you
do this and, if possible, to do it in the learners’ first language. If it’s
possible to have an induction session with each student or small
group of students, this can really help the students and caregivers
to get used to the platform and make it much easier when your
students come along to their first lesson.
During this session, they need to be guided through basic
functions:
• Help them understand how to adjust their sound and volume.
• Help them set up the computer so that they can use and be
seen by the webcam.
• Give them some experience of being moved into a breakout
room. (For older students only.)
If it’s not possible to do this before the course starts, then you
should definitely make time in your first lesson to cover these
functions. The more students understand about how to use the
platform before they start the course, the easier it will be for you to
deliver a professional and engaging lesson.  the remote classroom, and if you do, it will be an unpleasant and
Teachers
You will also benefit from some onboarding time to get used to the
platform before using it with students. There are four key functions
of any platform that you need to understand to get started.
Learning how to manage these functions will help you to deliver an
engaging learning experience for your students. 
© Oxford University Press
The four key functions are:
• Sound and how you use your voice within the remote
classroom.
• Your webcam and how you use it to create presence and model
interpersonal communication.
• How to use the screen sharing function of your platform to
show and share your digital course book materials.
• How to set up and use breakout rooms to enable pair and
group work.
Your voice
Using sound
To use sound and your voice well you should make sure that
you use a headset with a microphone if possible, rather than
the speakers and microphone on your computer. Using the
built-in speakers and microphone can cause feedback, echo and
interference from background noise. This kind of interference can
make the lesson difficult to follow and unpleasant for the students.
Balancing the volume
In order to use your voice well within the remote classroom you
need to understand some basic things about how the sound works
within the software you are using. Most platforms have volume
controls built in and they ask you to check your sound when you
launch the platform application. Always do this and make sure that
your volume level is adjusted appropriately. During your class you
may have students who say they can’t hear you. Be sure to ask them
to adjust the volume on their own computer rather than trying to
increase your own as this will only cause distortion.
Using your voice
You need to use your voice differently in a remote classroom. You
may be used to projecting your voice to the back of the class in
a crowded physical classroom, but you don’t need to do this in
potentially intimidating experience, especially for younger learners.
Remember to use your voice naturally as you would when talking
to someone sitting next to you rather than in a large group. One of
the useful things about many remote classroom applications is that
if your students are making too much noise you can mute them
to get their attention, so be sure to find out how to do this on the
platform you use.
A guide to teaching young learners online 1
 Think about how you vary the tone of your voice depending on
the different stages of the lesson. When giving instructions you
may want to have a stricter, more direct tone, whereas when you
are giving feedback or encouraging students to speak you can
soften your tone and be friendlier. The remote classroom gives you
a greater capacity to work with the tone of your voice because you
have much greater control of what students hear and you don’t
have to compete with classroom noise.
Your webcam
When moving from the physical classroom to the remote
classroom you are swapping the large space you have at the front
of the classroom for the much smaller space you have in front
of your webcam. Good teachers use their whole body within
the space they have in the classroom. They use hand gestures
and facial expression when speaking. They use proximity and
move closer to students when they want more or less control
over them. They stand or sit in different places to set up activities,
give instructions or monitor students as they work. They use eye
contact to get students’ attention and to let them know that they
are speaking to them or paying attention to them. All of these
things are also possible in the remote classroom, if we set up our
computer and webcam appropriately.
Setting up the webcam
In order to understand your body language and gestures, your
students need to see as much of the top half of your body as
possible, but having the screen at an angle pointing up to you, as
many people who use laptops do, will only show them a distorted
view of your head and some of your ceiling. Ideally you should have
your computer set up so that the webcam is at eye level with you
and the computer screen is parallel to your body. This will make it
easier for you to have eye contact with your students and reduce
the distorting effect of the lens.  You should also move back from
the screen by up to 80-100 cm if you can, so that you have more
space to move around and your students can see more of you.
You can also try putting your computer on top of some boxes or
use a stand-up desk. Standing up can really help you use the space
between you and your webcam more effectively and can also help
boost your energy levels and make your classes more dynamic.
Try to have a plain background behind you with as few distractions
as possible. This will make it easier for students to see you and your
gestures and body language.
Set up your lighting so that students can see you clearly. Don’t
have a strong light or a window behind you as this will transform
you into a silhouette. Try to have natural light on your face or use a
lamp to one side of your computer.
When using your webcam, you will usually be able to see the
image of yourself that is being broadcast to your students. This
usually appears at the top or bottom corner of the screen. In some
cases, such as with the Zoom platform, the image is movable. If
this is the case, drag the image of yourself up to the top centre of
the screen, just below your webcam. People have a tendency to
look at themselves and monitor their body language while they are
speaking, so placing the image below the webcam will enable you
to do this whilst still maintaining eye contact with your students.
If you leave the image at the bottom of the screen it will appear to
your students like you are avoiding eye contact. Having the ability
to watch yourself as you teach in this way can be really beneficial,
as it can help you to see yourself as your students see you. This is a
great opportunity to work on your body language and ensure that
you are using it in a friendly and reassuring manner.
Using the space
Having more space between you and the webcam also allows you
to do more of the things you are familiar with doing in the physical
classroom, such as using flashcards, showing realia or using mime.
© Oxford University Press
You can also think about how you use proximity to the camera as
a way of managing your class. You may want to come closer to the
camera when you are speaking to an individual student or step
back when you are addressing the whole class.
Proximity, body language, gesture and tone of voice are all
elements of good communication that we need to model for
students and also encourage them to learn and use, so it’s good to
have some activities that involve students in developing their non-
verbal communication skills too.
Many younger students can be reluctant to use their webcam
for classes. This could be because they are sensitive about their
living space or are feeling self-conscious. Having the webcam on
can really help them to develop their communication skills so
encourage them to do this where possible.
Activities for encouraging the use of the webcam
Here are some activities that can encourage students to become
more comfortable using their webcam.
Show and tell
Ask your students to find something in their house or room that
has special significance for them. This could be a toy, trophy or a
souvenir from a holiday. Ask them to take it turns to tell their peers
about the object and show it on their webcam. Once students
have told each other about the objects, ask them to tell you what
they discovered about each other. It can be effective to model this
activity for students by showing and telling them about an object
that has special significance for you. 
Puppets
Using a puppet in your lesson can be a nice way of adding extra
engagement, an extra voice and entertainment. If you do not have
a course puppet, you can make a simple glove or sock puppet
and use it for a variety of tasks to enhance the lessons. You can get
the puppet to practise new language with the students. You can
ask the puppet to read the story or text for the day or sing a song.
Making puppets together can be a nice activity to do with the
students, and students can use their puppets in front of the camera
if they are feeling shy.
Dress-up day
Another great way to help students enjoy and feel comfortable in
front of the camera is to have dress-up days. Students can wear
hats or costumes and dress as characters for the lesson. This could
be as part of a play that you create together, or it could just be a fun
way of expressing another element of the students’ personalities.
Remember that you have to dress up, too!
Drawing
Just because you are working in the digital medium doesn’t mean
you can’t still use pens and paper with your students. There are
lots of activities that you can get students to do and then they can
simply show their drawings to each other using the webcam. You
can do picture dictations with almost any level of students, just
describe a picture using language appropriate to the students’ level
and ask them to listen and draw what they hear. When they have
finished, they can hold their pictures up to their webcam to show
each other and you can hold up your own picture so that they can
compare. 
Mime
Getting students to mime actions in front of the webcam is also a
great way to make using it more fun. You can ask students to mime
actions or they can mime following a set of instructions. There is
a nice mime game called The Magic Object. To play this game you
pretend to hold an object in your cupped hands and students try
to guess what you are holding. After a few guesses, tell them it is
a magic object and that it can change into anything. Mime using
a few objects such as comb, cup, hair dryer, gloves etc. Then when
one of the students guesses correctly, pass the object to them. To
A guide to teaching young learners online 2
 do this, lift the imaginary object up to your webcam and pass it to
the student as though through the screen. They take it and make it
into another object. The students can then guess and pass to each
other through the screen. At the end of the activity, you can review
all the different objects and see how many they can remember.
Mirror
This is a nice way to help students develop their body language
and to have some fun at the same time. Ask your students to
watch your body language and gestures. Try standing in ways that
suggest different emotions, for example angry, happy, sad, bored,
and get the students to copy you. Then ask them what your body
language is saying. You can also get the students to take it in turns
to model the body language attitudes.
Screen sharing
The screen sharing function of your platform is what enables you
to show students your course materials and guide them through
the activities and tasks. The technical side of this function may
vary from platform to platform, but all remote classrooms will have
some means of showing materials. In some cases, this involves
uploading them to a whiteboard space and in others it simply
involves opening the materials on your computer screen and
then sharing the screen with your students so that they can also
see them. Make sure you know how to use this function. It can be
incredibly useful for guiding students through the course book and
materials, showing students images and videos, sharing websites
with students or showing them your own self-prepared materials.
When you use screen sharing, remember that students can see
what’s on your whole screen so be sure to check and make sure
there’s nothing personal or distracting showing before sharing.
Breakout rooms
Setting up and using breakout rooms
One important tool for helping students to practise and develop
their spoken language skills is the breakout room feature of the
remote classroom. Most applications that have been developed for
teaching will have some form of breakout room functionality. This
enables the teacher to put the students into pairs or groups in a
separate room so that they can practise speaking together. The way
these rooms function and how this is done can vary from platform
to platform, so be sure to check your own platform and make sure
you know how to do this. It’s a good idea to work with a group
of fellow teachers and practise this together so you feel more
confident trying it with your students.
There are some important things to remember when using
breakout rooms.
Firstly, set up your activities and give your students any instructions
they need for the activities before they go to the breakout room.
Once they go into their breakout rooms, they won’t be able to hear
you, so they need to know what to do when they get there.
A breakout room is like a new version of the room you are using,
but all of the materials you have been showing students so far
in the lesson and the messages from the chat box will usually be
gone, so if students need materials to use in the breakout room,
they will need to have their own copies that they can access once
they are in the breakout room.
© Oxford University Press
Student behaviour in breakout rooms
Some teachers worry about whether students are on task or
misbehaving in the breakout rooms. For that reason, it can be
useful with more mature students to assign one person in each
group to be a monitor and give them a separate task. This could be
listening and making notes of any grammar errors they think they
hear, or it could be monitoring to see which student contributes
the most to the discussion. At the end of the breakout session
when you bring the students back to the main room, you can ask
these people to feedback on the performance of their group.
Giving students some feedback after the breakout sessions is vitally
important. If students don’t feel that the work they did in the room
was monitored and evaluated, they may start to feel that it is of less
value and so lose motivation.
Students need to have a level of maturity for breakout rooms to
be a viable option. If your students are too young for these, don’t
worry, there are other ways you can make the lessons engaging,
just as you do in the physical classroom.
Tips for teaching online
Classroom management
In some ways the remote classroom solves a lot of classroom
management problems. In many remote classrooms you can, for
example, control your students’ audio and mute them when you
need students to listen to you. You can also select who has a turn to
speak by unmuting their audio but controlling the class in this way
can have its negative side. It’s better to be able to make students
aware of the importance of taking turns in remote working
environments as this is an important part of developing their
communication skills. Having said that it’s reassuring to know that
if things ever get out of hand you have the ability to simply turn off
student audio.
In some platforms there is a small icon that students can click on
when they want to say something or ask a question. These can be
very useful to discourage students from shouting out constantly.
You will need to train your students in how to use these. Once a
student has clicked the icon to put their hand up, it usually stays
up until they click again, so you’ll also need to remind them to put
their hands down.
Some platforms also have other icons such as ticks and crosses that
students can click on so think about how you can use these to elicit
responses from students and to check they understand and are
following you. You could for example get students to click on a tick
or a cross to indicate that they think a statement is true or false or
that they agree or disagree.
If you can’t use breakout rooms with your learners, pair and group
work can still be managed. You can do this by nominating pairs to
work together on activities like dialogues, role-plays or drills, while
other students listen, or put students into groups and get one
group to do the activity while another group listens. When doing
pair and group work in this way, it’s important to give the students
that aren’t actively speaking some form of listening task so they are
still involved and part of the lesson. Activities like circle drills which
involve students listening to the previous speaker before adding
their statement can also be really effective as they encourage
students to listen to each other.
A guide to teaching young learners online 3
 Presenting course materials
Just as in the physical classroom, a large part of your teaching will
be guided by your course materials and the materials that you
produce yourself to enhance these. Use the Oxford Classroom
Presentation Tool (CPT) to display and highlight the parts of the
book that you want students to focus on.
The CPT has a number of tools that make it easier for you to use
the book in the remote classroom. One of the key tools that can
help you is the zoom tool. This helps you to zoom in to specific
images or exercises in the book so that they are easier for your
students to see. To get a better understanding of how the CPT
works, watch this useful tutorial video from Charlotte Murphy:  pictures but get them to predict a range of different possibilities
https://youtu.be/Th-KECC40IM  and accept their answers openly.
You can also use your printed components, such as flashcards, in
the usual way by taking a step back from the webcam in order to
hold them up for students to see.
Engagement and inclusion
As with the physical classroom, students who aren’t engaged
and included in the remote classroom soon switch off and stop
learning. As with the physical classroom, it’s important to change
activity types quite regularly and to nominate who should speak.
Make sure you give everyone the opportunity to speak and be
involved in activities. As mentioned earlier, you have much more
control of turn taking in the remote classroom than in the physical
one, so use that control to make sure everyone gets their chance.
Switch between “heads-down” activities and tasks that are more
physical or visual. Ask students to get out of their seats and move,
whether it’s miming or going to find something in their home to
show you or other students. Include them as whole people, not just
as students and give them the chance to share the environment
around them while they are studying. Encourage them to reflect
on the lessons and what they like about studying in the remote
classroom and what they miss about the physical classroom.
Lastly, also try to make time for games and socialisation. One of the
things that many students like about going to school is the chance
to meet their friends and make new friends. Try to set aside just a
little part of your lesson time where they can relax and be together
and enjoy each other’s company.
Exploiting stories
All Oxford Primary Class Books feature a story in every unit. These
are always accompanied by audio and frequently by animations
and story cards. We can use these in the remote classroom in a
number of ways. To use these effectively you will need to screen
share your copy of the book or story cards if you have them. You
can use the zoom tool on the Oxford Classroom Presentation Tool
to enlarge the pictures so that students can see them more clearly.
Before the students hear the story, you can:
• Ask students questions and encourage them to look at the
images and try to understand the story before they listen.
© Oxford University Press
• Ask students to find different objects or colours in the images,
for example “Where can you see scissors?”, “Where can you see a
woman with grey hair?”
• Ask students about the relationships between the people in the
images, for example, “Are they friends?”, “Is that his sister or his
mother?”
• Ask students how they think people in the images are feeling, for
example “Is he sad?”, “Why do you think he is sad?”
• Ask them what they think is happening in each of the pictures.
(You can let them explain in their first language if they can’t
do this in English.) Don’t tell them if they are correct about the
These kinds of questions engage the students in thinking about
and understanding the story before they begin to listen.
Once they start to read and listen, you can:
• Play the audio and video for the story by clicking on the play
button at the beginning of each story page.
• Tell them to listen to the story and find out who was right about
the pictures.
• Give your students additional support by clicking on the
transcript button on the video so that they can read and listen
at the same time. (The part of the text they are hearing is
highlighted in order to make the story easier to follow.)
After the story, you can check the students have understood in a
number of ways. You can:
• Ask the students about their predictions and how many of them
were correct.
• Ask them some questions about the story.
• Either read or describe the part of the story that goes with one
of the images and the students can guess which is the correct
image.
• Say one of the lines the characters speak and see if the students
can remember who said it and in which picture they said it.
• Ask them to write some quiz questions to test each other.
There are lots of ways you can follow up the story. You can:
• Ask students to extend the story and draw the next picture. Then
the students can explain how they think the story continued. 
• Ask them to draw speech bubbles above the images in their
story to indicate what the characters are saying. When the
students have finished their drawings, they can hold them up to
the camera to show everyone.
• Read parts of the story and ask the students to mime the part of
the story they are hearing.
Using Songs
All Oxford Primary Class Books feature at least one song per unit.
Songs can be used to practise and review language as well as to
mark transitions between the stages of a lesson.
Most of the songs also have an animated video that students can
watch while they listen.
Before they listen to the song, you can play the animated video
without the sound and just use the images to elicit vocabulary and
ask students to predict what the song may be about. Pause the
video at specific points and ask the students to share which words
they think will be in the song at that point. They can type these into
the chat window or answer verbally.
Once the students have seen the whole of the song animation and
predicted the language content, play it again and ask students to
listen and see which of the words they predicted are included in
the song. Congratulate them on the correct words they guessed.
Play the song again and this time ask the students to mime some
of the actions they hear mentioned in the song. As with the story
A guide to teaching young learners online 4
 videos, you can also click to show the students the transcript or ask
them to read, listen and mime as the song plays.
Finally, you can ask the students to sing along with the song.
If students are shy, you can tell them they can turn off their
microphone so that nobody will hear them singing. Play the
animated video again and let them read and sing along as they
listen.
To follow up, you could ask older students to write another verse for
the song in pairs or groups. When they have finished writing, you
can ask the groups to sing their verse of the song together.
Recommended resources
There are some great examples of how to use Oxford course
materials in the remote classroom on the Oxford YouTube channel
– Learn From Home:
Video: Charlotte Murphy demonstrates how to use the
Classroom Presentation Tool for online or remote lessons  https://
youtu.be/Th-KECC40IM 

Video: Erika Osvath demonstrates how to use flashcards for

Assessment vocabulary teaching. https://youtu.be/RWknHkWIEcE
There are many ways you can assess and give feedback to students
learning online.
Video: Paul Woodfall gives a great example of how you can use
For young learners working online, it’s extremely important to keep
the printed course book and the CPT to deliver a grammar lesson
encouraging and praising them.  There are a number of ways you
for young learners. https://youtu.be/mraCk-nvVw8
can reinforce your praise. You can create your own badges and
awards to give to students. You can do this quite simply by using
an award template and writing in the names of your students and Video: Philip Haines shows you how you can use the classroom
what the award is for. You can then give these awards to students materials to deliver a successful listening lesson for young learners
by sharing a document with them so that they can see their awards https://youtu.be/nezMjfNu2AU
and collect them in a file together.
You could start a simple digital portfolio for your students where You can also download our focus papers to access bite-sized
you keep digital copies of all of their work. This is easy to do by insights and practical tips by logging into the Oxford Teachers’ Club.
using Google Drive or Dropbox and creating a folder for each of
your students. Collect their work in the folder and make sure you Focus on Focus on

include the date in the file name, then you can easily assess and MANAGING ONLINE
evaluate their progress. You can even share this work with their TEACHING ONLINE LEARNING
1. What is it?

parents and allow them to add materials that the students do at

1. What is it?
Good teaching is good teaching, whether it is done face-to-face or online. As a teacher,
you will already have many skills and strategies that you can bring to teaching online,
whatever digital tools you choose (or are asked) to use. And as a language teacher, you
already know how to engage and motivate your students. You also know that you need
to give your students opportunities to listen to and practise English. In this paper, we
Increasingly, the first place we go for anything we need to know or learn is online.
It’s easier and faster than ever to access the tools and information we need. But for
longer-term learning goals like language learning which involve the development
of knowledge and skills over time, online learning will require structure, support,
interaction, and a teacher.

home.
look at tools, techniques, and activities that will enable you to use these essential skills
in your online teaching.
Variety of options
There isn’t a single ‘correct’ way to teach online. How you teach online depends on
your context and what technologies you and your students have available. It also
depends on how confident you feel using these technologies, and what you want your
students to achieve. Teaching online can include:
At its simplest, online learning can be facilitated just by sending assignments by email
or on a messenger app for your students to complete and return in the same way for
marking. Going further, there is a wealth of free resources, support, and easy-to-use
tools that can help you set up and run online learning. These can enable you to deliver
tasks and activities to your students, track their interaction with the activities, collect
scores to measure attainment, and even meet face-to-face online with groups or
individual students for live lessons or one-to-one tutorials.

Older students can add audio clips or video clips that they create
■ Synchronous learning
This involves communicating in real time. For example, carrying out a live lesson
with your students using a videoconferencing tool like Skype or Zoom.
■ Asynchronous learning
This involves communicating over time. For example, asking your students to work
With younger learners, you will need to enlist the support of parents. There are lots of
ready-made activities that you can send younger students to work on with their parents.
Check out the teacher support site for your coursebook on the Oxford Teachers’ Club.
There is also the Oxford Parents site where you can find tips and activities to share
with parents.
2. What types of tools are available?

with their phone or computer. They could record their own versions
with online learning materials or participate in a class discussion via email or in an
online forum at a time or location of their own choosing.
Learning platforms
■ Using ready-made materials Google Classroom and Edmodo are very popular learning platforms that many
A wide range of digital English language learning materials for all age groups teachers use. They have the advantage of being compatible with tools that you can use
and on almost any topic is available online, including language learning apps, to create interactive materials.
digital reading and listening resources, grammar games, and videos. Many English
If you work with older students who are regular Facebook users, you can create courses

of the stories and songs from the lessons and keep them in the
language coursebooks come with online tips and activities for teachers and parents,
on Facebook using a Facebook Group. Be sure to use a community group and set it to
including those that can be found on the Oxford Teachers’ Club and Oxford Parents
show the content in units. This will enable you to structure your content around themes,
websites.
skills, or grammar points.
■ Creating materials
You may need to create some materials yourself in order to supplement your Content tools
coursebook or to meet the requirements of teaching online. For example, you could If you want to create your own interactive content, there are quite a few different

folder. This would enable you to listen to their speaking without the
create online quizzes using free websites and apps like Kahoot! or Quizlet. options. You can use free tools like Educandy and Jetpack for creating games and
quizzes for younger learners. For teens and adults, Kahoot and Quizlet are useful for
■ Using multimedia
creating quizzes and games.
Multimedia can be used in low-tech contexts, where you can create audio
recordings to share via email, as well as in high-tech contexts, where you could
create a video recording or a narrated PowerPoint presentation to share via an
online file-sharing service such as Google Drive or Dropbox.

surrounding background noise of the classroom and to carefully

evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. You can then record your
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nicky Hockly is Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E (TCE). She is a teacher,
trainer, international plenary speaker, consultant, and author of several prize-
winning methodology books about technology in ELT.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nik Peachey has worked all over the world as a language teacher, teacher trainer,
technology trainer, and educational technology consultant. He is an award-winning
course designer and materials writer and author.

© Oxford University Press www.oup.com/elt/expert 1 © Oxford University Press www.oup.com/elt/expert 1

feedback in the same way and post it into their portfolio folder
Focus on Teaching Online   Focus on Managing Online Learning
for them to listen to. These audio and video files are then easy to
review and compare weeks or months later for both you and your www.oup.com/elt/expert
students to evaluate their progress.
Also, remember that your Oxford Primary course contains progress
tests that you can send to students to complete.

Conclusion
Teaching in the remote classroom isn’t so different from teaching
in the physical classroom. In fact, the things that make lessons
successful in the physical classroom are much the same and
perhaps even more important in the remote classroom. Things
like: your warmth as a teacher; your ability to build and develop
relationships with your students; your ability to set up motivating
activities; your ability to listen to, watch and assess students and
give meaningful feedback.
All of these skills that you have from your experience in the physical
classroom can easily be transferred to the remote classroom. You
don’t need to learn about lots of new applications or tools to
deliver a successful lesson. You just need to understand the four
basic features of using your voice, the webcam, screen sharing and
(where appropriate) breakout rooms. The rest is just teaching as
normal.

Acknowledgements
The publisher would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce
photographs: (Shutterstock/Naumova Marina)

© Oxford University Press   ISBN 978-0-19-483720-0 A guide to teaching young learners online 5