[1] Learning has a purpose.

     When learners enter a language class, they have a purpose to fulfill. Like-minded students will agree that in their case they study English because it can help them -later on in their professional life- to attain opportunities that monolingual individuals cannot aspire. English opens doors!

     “The learner’s goal or purpose is of chief importance in the act of learning” (OSHAcademy, 2015). As online instructors we must relate learning material and classroom production tasks to the learner’s goals. We must make students long to have sight of their future in class because of their language training.

[2] Learning comes through experience.

     In the planning on an online (or F2F) class, the instructor gets to include learning tasks that are extracted from experience (schemata) in the real world. The reproduction of these simulations in the virtual class prepares them to face situations they already have (or will have) to face in real life. The online English class does provide a replica of real-life scenarios to practice the language!

     As virtual instructors we must provide learners with real experiences that are meaningful and appropriate to the content of a lesson. A strong link between reality and the class production activities needs to be created. We do not just want to reproduce, e.g., a template conversation (in low levels) but to see how they can modify it to serve their purposes in the class activity or future conversations in the real world.

[3] Learning is multifaceted.

     “An instructor who thinks his job is only to train a student’s muscle or memory is wasting his own and his student’s time” (OSHAcademy, 2015). The online English classroom also provides learners chances to be exposed and learn more than the language. Living the experience of learning a language virtually, along with the interaction with peers, results in positive changes in the way students see, think, feel, and react to distance learning. Learning English virtually is a multifaceted experience!

     Based on Li & Lalani (2020), “some research shows that on average, students retain 25-60% more material when learning online compared to only 8-10% in a classroom.” If this statistical fact can be transferred to the virtual English classroom, the way a class is structured (planned) will allow for meaningful sets of practice. “If the lesson time available for the activity is seen as a container, then this should be filled with as much ‘volume’ of language as possible” (Ur, 1996). And this volume  will bring practice of social and soft skills along with content rehearsal.

[4] Learning is an active process.

     Learning English across a full gamut of activities linked to real-life scenarios turns it into an active process. Learning triggers a change in behavior because of the classroom simulations and experiences in preparation to real-life scenarios; all this is active learning through collaborative language tasks. All these activities in the online English classroom are to sprout up and bring life and success to students.

     “Learners who are really engaging with the language must be attentive; loss of attention means loss of learning time” (Ur, 1996). Learning cannot be dimensioned as passive or using lower-thinking skills; it is for this reason that Bloom’s Taxonomy must be inverted to structure collaborative, active tasks that go beyond remembering and understanding. As stated by Lewin (2020), just listening to a teacher involves lower order thinking skills.