7 Free Online Courses in September

Hello hello, welcome back to That Is Evil!

I hope your summer break was fun – mine sure was. I’m now ready for a new season, and I hope that you are also quite excited. Well, to make this somewhat difficult transition easier for you, I’ve picked a traditional set of seven free online courses that may prove really useful in the upcoming year!

1 The IELTS Teacher Training Program by IDP Education

Start: self-paced
Duration: –
Recommended for: teachers who work with IELTS

You will learn:

• the critical features in the Speaking and Writing Band Descriptors
• how to use the public Band Descriptors as a teaching tool
• why test takers don’t achieve their desired band score

2 TeachingEnglish: Planning lessons by the British Council

Start: 12/09/2023
Duration: 4 weeks
Recommended for: teachers who want to improve their lesson planning skills
You will learn:

• how to plan engaging language and topic-based lessons by identifying and applying commonly used lesson models
• about techniques for introducing new language, writing achievable learning outcomes
• how to plan warmers and lead-ins

3 Classroom management for primary by the British Council

Start: 12/09/2023
Duration: 4 weeks
Recommended for: teachers who want to learn more about classroom management
You will learn:

• about teacher and learner classroom language and how to give clear instructions when setting up activities
• about ways of managing activities effectively, organising pair and group work, and making use of space in the classroom
• how to identify and evaluate supplementary materials

4 TeachingEnglish: How to teach speaking by the British Council

Start: 12/09/2023
Duration: 4 weeks
Recommended for: teachers who want to explore teaching techniques and activities which promote oral communication
You will learn:

• key terms and issues in the teaching of speaking
• how to evaluate and modify activities in terms of communicative quality
• how to get your learners use ‘real speaking’

5 Playing with Poetry: Creative Writing and Poetics by the University of Newcastle

Start: available now
Duration: 3 weeks
Recommended for: people interested in poetry
You will learn:

• how to identify a range of different forms of poetry
• about key techniques involved in shaping a poem
• about the poetic ideas and theories which inform particular kinds of poetry

6 Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects by Deep Teaching Solutions

Start: available now
Duration: 4 weeks
Recommended for: people who want to learn more about the process of learning

You will learn:

• how the brain uses two very different learning modes and how it encapsulates (“chunks”)
• about illusions of learning, memory techniques, dealing with procrastination, and best practices shown by research to be most effective
• how to change your thinking and change your life

7 The Science of Well-Being for Teens by Yale University (you can use it in your classroom!)

Start: available now
Duration: 6 weeks
Recommended for: people who want to support teens who say they have poor mental health
You will learn:

• what the field of psychology teaches us about how to be happier, how to feel less stressed, and how to thrive in high school and beyond
• how our minds lie to us and how the science shows that our misconceptions about money, grades, and social media are holding us back
• techniques to achieve happiness goals

Can you see a course that might be helpful this year? I think I might try the one on classroom discipline – after all, that’s educational evergreen, and even though I know this topic quite well, there’s always something new to learn!

Have fun!