Best Free Online Courses for English Tutors, Staff-Reviewed

These days, we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to free learning – from Youtube tutorials to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). And while the vast range of learning options is a great thing, it also makes the search for just the right course kinda tiring. 

So to save busy online tutors like yourself some precious time, we’ll introduce some of the courses that our staff have personally taken and recommend to others in our field.

1. IELTS Teacher Training Program

Have you ever wanted to get inside the mind of an examiner? Well, the IELTS Speaking training course by IDP Australia is your chance.

As you might expect, this course covers how to assess various features of learner speech using the IELTS scoring rubric. But even if you don’t plan on touching any kind of test prep, this course can hone your ability to assess students’ strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to provide better feedback. Plus, IELTS is a popular exam among our students (we even have our own IELTS course), so it’s not a bad idea to familiarize yourself with it.

The beauty of the course is that it doesn’t give you theoretical knowledge – it provides real-life recordings of students so you can actually understand what a student at each level should sound like. 

This course made me realize that I give more feedback on vocabulary and pronunciation and less on grammar and fluency (e.g. pauses, hesitation, or speech that's too fast or slow). Since different students value different types of feedback, I'm glad this course opened up my ability to give feedback on aspects of speech that I previously wouldn't comment on.

Staff review

Lastly, unlike other test prep courses for teachers, this one is made by one of the official organizations which manages the IELTS. So you can be sure what you’re learning comes straight from the horse’s mouth – not to mention, unlike those other courses, this one is totally free.

2. Arizona State University’s Free Online Courses

The staff at Arizona State University have created a number of fun online courses for English teachers. Most relevant to us is Teach English Now! Teaching Language Online.

Through this course, new online tutors will get a taste of the job through videos of real online lessons, while long-time online tutors can look forward to gaining a deeper understanding of the principles underlying their teaching. 

For example, the first week of the course focuses on second language acquisition principles and demonstrates how they can be applied to online teaching through real video examples of  teachers providing opportunities for authentic input and output.

The same university also offers a totally online TESOL certification program. You can become certified through the paid version of the course or you can audit it completely for free. One of our staff members became certified through this program and later landed an English teaching job in Spain.

While the program is designed for classroom teachers, much of the content is also relevant to online tutoring. For example, the sixth course in this program covers challenges students’ face when learning to listen, speak, and pronounce a new language as well as proven strategies for overcoming these challenges.

At times, their videos get a little corny, but this helps make their content more memorable and relaxed. As another member of our staff who took this course remarked, “This wasn’t boring like the other Coursera courses I took!”

3. Teaching Languages in Primary Schools: Putting Research into Practice

We all know that research can make us better tutors, but let’s be honest: How many of us actually have time to really dig into it? 

This is where “Teaching Languages in Primary Schools” shines. The instructors – academics with primary school teaching experience –  summarize research findings and tell us how to apply them into our practice. 

In between lectures, they keep it real with interviews of experienced classroom teachers and videos of great teaching in action. In the comments on the bottom of each page, you’ll also find valuable insights from your classmates around the world.

I found this course helpful, because it uses research to debunk common misconceptions about teaching children, such as “teaching reading in a foreign language early causes confusion” or “we shouldn’t teach kids memorized chunks of language.” So now I have a much clearer understanding of what I should be doing with younger learners.

Staff review

👋 That’s it for now!

We hope you found this list helpful. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find any free courses on popular topics like teaching business English. However, we’ll continue scouring the web for more helpful resources for online English tutors. In the meantime, happy tutoring!