7 great free online courses to take in May

Teaching is learning, sure thing – but with so many sources to study choosing something suitable may take us more time than an actual course! Not to mention increasing greed-like feeling “oh, yes, I’m enrolling here… and there… and I totally have to find some time for this course!”

No need to panic – being quite an experienced online learner, I’ve decided to make a list of courses you may partake in this month, and possibly enjoy them at least as much as I do. I’ve got some ideas for both teachers and students of EFL because there are some options you may not really want to participate in, but share with your pupils or fellow learners as well. For example:

1 IELTS Academic Test Preparation by  the University of Queensland, Australia

IELTS Academic is the most popular exam for people who want to study in an English-speaking country, and from my experience of a person who’s been preparing others for this test for 5 years, it’s impossible to pass with a decent band without an earlier preparatory course – so if you think about studying abroad – take a look at this course!

The four-module course will take you 8 weeks of an estimated 5 hours/week. Level of English is rather low, and all the videos are subtitled.

2 Designing Assessments to Measure Student Outcome by AACTE (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education)

The course starts on the 1st of May and takes 3 weeks (estimated 3 hours/week). It focuses on creating tools to measure student outcomes. It may be quite useful for teachers who struggle with assessing their students’ progress or simply want to develop their understanding of this area.

Its three modules consist of building assessments, surveys and rubrics.

3 Understanding Autism by University of Kent

As teachers, we’re bound to meet an autistic student sooner or later. This course focuses on living with this lifelong developmental disability affecting social relations and communication. I believe every teacher should learn at least a bit about this spectrum condition.

The course starts on the 1st of May and takes 4 weeks (estimated 3 hours/week).

I’ve already enrolled.

4 Dyslexia and Foreign Language Teaching by Lancaster University

I already finished this course and I can recommend it to any teacher who struggles with understanding what dyslexia is and how terrifying it may be to our students to try and learn a foreign language – the course explains the nature of dyslexia, but also gives some solutions we may use to help our students.

The course started on the 24th of April, but you may still enrol! It takes 4 weeks of roughly 4 hours/week.

5 Teaching Your Subject in English by Cambridge English and Cambridge International Examinations

The course is perfect for teachers who teach regular school subjects and are planning to do this in English. The course consists of modules covering language needed for motivation, guidance, management and monitoring. It may be useful for CLIL teachers as well.

The course starts on the 1st of May and takes 5 weeks of roughly 3 hours/week.

6 Tricky American English Pronunciation by University of California, Irvine

Here you’ll have a chance to practise American English with all its trickiness – vowels, consonants and their sounds. Unfortunately, access to all of the lectures and handouts is free to anyone, but the graded assignments and quizzes are only available in the paid version of the course. Apart from enrolling, you may easily recommend this course to your students, as the linguistic level is suited for the beginners.

The course starts on the 8th of May and takes 4 weeks of a 3-4 hours/week.

7 History of Rock, Part One by University of Rochester

This is the course worth taking part not only in order to develop English, but also to get the a greater grasp of cultural knowledge – after all a huge part of rock music is connected with English-speaking countries! I am going to share this with my students, especially teenagers, who are linguistically ready to start learning on their own, but all they need is a nice course focusing on something they find interesting – and I’m sure rock music will be a good choice.

The course starts on the 22nd of May and includes 12-24 hours of videos and quizzes. It’s in English, but subtitles are available in English, simplified Chinese and Serbian.

I hope you’ll find at least one of the courses recommended by me interesting. Let me know when you decide to pick something and enrol – I’ll be happy to exchange experience. And maybe we’ll meet somewhere trying to Understand Autism?

Enjoy your learning!