How to Create Online English Courses: Step by Step
Ready to share your experience with others? Have lots of ideas and your own vision of the perfect English course? Then perhaps it is time to create your own educational product. This task is interesting and not easy at the same time, but it is quite achievable with today’s technologies and opportunities. The process should be structured and gradual, so below we look at how to create online English courses from idea to launch.
Contents
1. How to create your own courses: monetizing your knowledge
1.1. Preparing the topics and structure of online English courses
1.2. Difficulties in preparing to create your own online English courses
2. How to open your own courses: technical questions
2.1. Choosing an online learning platform
2.2. Creating online lessons, learning materials and tests
3. How to create online English courses: marketing and promotion
The path to creating your own online product depends on various factors, from how complex the programs are to their scale. We will look at the basic steps for opening your own English courses: defining your target audience, analyzing competitors, choosing the topic and structure, building a team, developing content, choosing a platform for creating online courses and tools for your work, creating and selecting learning materials, testing, marketing and promotion, launch and optimization.
A structured, step-by-step approach will help you figure out how to create online English courses
How to create your own courses: monetizing your knowledge
Online language programs are in demand among children, adults and specialists in various fields. If you dream of your own distance course or English school, first analyze your own capabilities and qualifications. What can you offer and what do you want to offer? What does your ideal study program look like? A clear vision of the future product makes it easier to answer the question of how to create your own courses. Then we suggest moving forward in simple steps.
Defining your target audience, analyzing competitors, creative ideas, finding formats: what to consider before creating online English courses:
- who your students are: first decide who the product is for (children, adults of which levels, specialists and so on). This will help narrow down your search for topics and teaching methods, structure the course and decide on the format;
- what competitors offer: study their offers and find interesting ideas and mistakes you want to avoid. For the analysis you can do your own research, use specialized online services or turn to professionals;
- how to simplify the process: look for case studies and examples of how other specialists or companies opened their courses (not only in English teaching), which tools they used, what mistakes they made and so on;
- who should be on your team: if you create an online English course yourself and will be its expert and teacher, you may need help from marketing and promotion specialists; if you plan to open a language school with a wide choice of programs and offers, more specialists and language teachers may be involved.
Preparing the topics and structure of online English courses
Once you have decided on your target audience and the format of your future programs, think about the course content:
- before creating your own courses, decide on the materials and resources you will rely on. Some online English teaching platforms offer ready-made interactive textbooks, but if you have your own vision or trust certain sources, think about how to integrate them into your future product;
- think about the format of teaching, practice exercises and assessment. There are various ways to present material: online English lessons, video recordings of theory, interactive exercises, games and so on. You can combine them to vary the learning process and make it interesting and flexible;
- prepare extra materials: before creating online English courses, think everything through to the smallest detail, even the extra materials and resources you will offer students for independent practice.
In general, if you have teaching experience, it will not be hard for you to prepare an effective program for students. Use proven methods, your own experience and colleagues’ success stories to create a structured, interesting online English course.
Do not overload the content: theory should be clear and well structured; pay attention to practice and speaking exercises online
Difficulties in preparing to create your own online English courses
Already at the stage of preparing to open your own online English courses, you may have lots of questions and run into some obstacles. We have gathered common difficulties others have faced: take them into account to simplify preparation and launch:
- too much information: before opening your own English courses, you will look through lots of materials and come up with lots of ideas and suggestions. To avoid overloading the program and yourself, draw up a clear structure for the online product and a work plan, look for balance and highlight what matters most;
- lack of knowledge and technical skills: if you plan to work on launching an online language product on your own, you may lack certain knowledge (organizational and technical matters, marketing and so on). That is normal. Turn to specialists for help, or get a basic understanding of the issue yourself and look for real case studies of how to open your own English courses;
- choosing the right technological solutions: the tools you chose before creating your online English courses may not work in practice right away. Be ready to test, optimize and add things during the learning process itself;
- the psychological side: you may be a professional in English, have a lot of teaching experience and many students, but still have some fear and lots of questions about how to create your own courses and how useful they will turn out to be in practice. That is normal too. You need confidence and a clear action plan to reach your goal;
- perfectionism: if this trait is typical of you, keep reminding yourself that you cannot always do everything perfectly the first time. Of course, an online English course should be competent, modern and clear for everyone involved, but excessive attention to every detail can drag out the launch or postpone it altogether.
There is no single recipe for creating online English courses: use existing examples, case studies, tips and the mistakes of those who have walked this path
How to open your own courses: technical questions
As we noted above, the technical aspects of creating an English program and of teaching itself are an important step when launching your own product.
Technical points to consider before creating online English courses:
- choose an online platform to host your product. Some of them offer everything needed for teaching: from creating your own program to interacting with students through the platform;
- prepare video and text content and extra materials for English practice;
- test how programs for online lessons (Zoom, Skype and so on) work and what they can do;
- prepare interactive exercises, tests and quizzes and add gamification elements to learning; before creating your courses, study modern approaches to practicing new material;
- set up ways of interacting with students online through chats, email, the chosen platform’s tools and so on;
- think through how students will pay for learning.
Choosing an online learning platform
Choosing a platform for learning and teaching is an important question to settle before opening your own English courses. It will affect how effective and convenient online learning is. When choosing, consider these criteria: your needs and conditions of use, the number of students and courses, functional and technical requirements for the system (the necessary tools, gamification, a clear interface and so on), your budget, and reviews and recommendations.
Let’s look at the basic features you may need using the TalkEn.Cloud platform for English teachers as an example. Such an online system simplifies the main technical requests:
- you do not need special skills, technical education, special equipment or specific programs to get started;
- the platform combines an LMS, its own library of interactive textbooks and professional development for English teachers;
- you can create groups and study programs, student profiles and online lessons, manage the schedule, monitor performance and attendance, run tests and give students feedback;
- there are ready-made study plans, homework exercises and English tests with automatic checking.
Before creating online English courses, you can get free 7-day demo access to the platform.
Creating online lessons, learning materials and tests
Before opening your own English courses, prepare the learning content in advance:
- record video versions of lessons or individual topics: the videos should be dynamic, clear and well structured, with no filler. Take care of the video quality. You can post them on YouTube, Vimeo or the platform you have chosen (if it has this feature);
- develop text materials for learning English, audio files and exercises to go with your online lessons: PDF files, presentations, listening tasks, tests for practicing new material, illustrations, infographics, mind maps and so on;
- prepare homework: this applies not only to textbook tasks but also to extra material to master. These can also be in various formats, from interactive English flashcards to watching a TV series and analyzing its vocabulary;
- develop online assessment exercises before you create your courses, and test that they work correctly and are clear and convenient to complete;
- record a video tutorial or create a guide describing the features of the learning platform and the other tools and systems that will be used in online learning.
Before launching an online English course, gather all your materials and structure them so that teaching and learning are clear, consistent and effective. Test it yourself and, if possible, on a group that matches your target audience.
Before opening your own English courses, practice creating interesting and useful video, audio and text content
How to create online English courses: marketing and promotion
Start thinking about promoting your online product even before you open your English courses. Use social media, blogs, advertising, SEO and other methods to attract your target audience’s attention. Turn to qualified specialists in launches and promotion for help.
If you plan to launch on your own, these can help with promotion:
- creating a promo landing page for the English course;
- creating social media accounts, filling them with useful content and then announcing the launches of your online learning products;
- organizing speaking clubs and free webinars before opening your English courses;
- targeted and contextual advertising, and buying posts from bloggers on social media or in topical Telegram channels.
After launching a trial online English course and seeing the first results, ask students for feedback and analyze mistakes and inconveniences in your work, in using the learning platform, in your teaching methods and so on.