Quick answer: The techniques that made Skype English lessons work – a store of ready-to-go conversation lessons, real-time corrections typed into the chat box, short meaningful homework and confident on-the-spot grammar help – work just as well on Zoom, Google Meet or Teams. Skype itself was retired by Microsoft in May 2025, but 1-to-1 video-call teaching is bigger than ever. Here are the five techniques I honed over hundreds of lessons.
A video call is a great tool for conversation-based English lessons. I should know, as I have given hundreds of 1-to-1 English lessons this way and founded the original company Phone English, doing the same. In the early days that meant Skype; today it means Zoom, Google Meet or Teams. The tools have changed, but the craft hasn’t: you can connect to the world for free, while the chat facility lets you send written real-time corrections and new words and phrases to your student instantly.
But how can you make the most of a video call to teach English? Well, I hope to give you a flavour of what is involved as well as some top tips for keeping 1-to-1 students interested, motivated and coming back for more.
1. Have a great store of ready-to-go lessons
Why re-invent the wheel? Good tried and tested lessons get your students talking around a theme quickly and with minimal set-up time. This is a snippet of one of my favourites from our 30 lesson plan pack which are mostly plug-and-play:
Survival English
Imagine that you are in the UK. What do you say in the following situations?
a) Ask for a ticket on the bus. You want to go to London and back.
b) You want to know what time the next train to London leaves.
c) You want to sit down on the train. What do you say to the man in the next seat?
d) You want to book a room at the Palace Hotel for two people for two nights.
Can you see how great this is for getting students practising useful English? You can also develop the final one into an instant role-play for extra practice. Provide these prompts via the chat box:
Balcony? Ensuite? Time in/out? Breakfast included? Cost?
Tell your student they are the customer and you are the hotel receptionist. They have to use the prompts to ask questions and book a room. Then reverse roles.
2. Get your students to do a little bit of meaningful homework
The more students practise English between lessons, the better. However, online 1-to-1 students are often the busiest – squeezing 30 minute lessons into hectic lives. So when it comes to homework, short and meaningful are the key words. This means I usually only give either consolidation or preparation for the next lesson as homework. Typically I will either get them to revise corrections/new words from the lesson (which I will have typed into the chat) and ‘test’ them next time. Or I will ask them to read/listen to something short, such as an article from Breaking News English or the free activities on American English, ready to discuss in the next lesson.
Think of the 1-to-1 video lesson as ‘output’ or production time. Any preparation they can do through the week as ‘input’ really helps with the quality of their output in the lesson.
3. Don’t just chat
The more you get to know your student, the more likely this is to happen and the whole lesson can drift by in a kind of lazy haze. The best technique is to be conversational while doing something meaningful or functional. If your student is adamant that chatting is all they want to do, then fine. However, ensure you correct and then every 10 lessons or so produce a revision sheet with all the corrections and new vocabulary (easily accessible from your saved chat history). Then have students practise them with you in the lesson 1-1. This has never failed to impress and ensures you are doing your job, which is to listen, correct, refine and extend their language.
If you need fresh discussion material, our tips for TEFL discussion classes and these 5 TEFL warmers adapt beautifully to 1-to-1 video lessons.
4. Following on from the above, correct well
In a class, corrections can be gone through together anonymously, without naming the source. In 1-1 classes there is nowhere to hide. As a result, teachers can shy away from correcting. My remedy is to ask permission in the first lesson. Say:
"How often do you want to be corrected?"
Most students will respond that they want to be corrected a lot and that means you both know what to expect. However, at lower levels or if confidence is not great, I tend to correct less. I want to build confidence and get them to ‘have a go’ in English.
5. Know your grammar
I have rarely given a straight grammar lesson by video call as most want conversation based lessons, but I still have to know what is wrong, why, and correct accordingly, often with little thinking time.
So if a student says: "If it will rain, I will take an umbrella."
I simply type their phrase into the chat and say: "This isn’t correct. What should it be?"
If there’s no answer, I’ll say: "In conditional sentences, we don’t put if and will together, so it should be…?"
Hopefully they will state the correct sentence. Then, I might say: "This is the first conditional. Here are some more prompts in the chat. Let's make these into first conditional sentences..."
hungry = eat, hot tomorrow = sun hat
If needed, I have a handy link to some online grammar exercises they can do outside of lessons to consolidate.
What happened to Skype?
Microsoft retired Skype in May 2025 and pointed its users towards the free version of Teams. If you and your students loved Skype’s click-and-call simplicity, Teams free or Google Meet are the nearest like-for-like replacements, while Zoom remains the most widely known option. Every technique on this page works identically on all of them – the chat box, screen share and call quality are all there or better. For a full teacher’s comparison of the free plans, see Zoom, Meet, Teams or WhatsApp for online English teaching?
Here is where each classic ‘Skype technique’ lives now:
| Technique | Where to do it now |
|---|---|
| Real-time written corrections | The in-call chat box (Zoom, Meet and Teams all have one) |
| Saved corrections for revision sheets | Teams keeps chat history between calls; on Zoom/Meet, save or copy the chat before ending the call |
| Sending role-play prompts mid-lesson | Chat box, or screen-share a prepared document |
| Recording a lesson to review | Zoom local recording (free) or Teams recording (paid plans) |
Enjoy your video-call students. Developing an easy relationship where your student feels comfortable experimenting with language and making mistakes is key. Be prepared to give a little of yourself to allow free-flowing communication but remember, this is their practice time. Often an online lesson is shorter than a face-to-face one and so it is more important to minimise teacher talking time and find ways to encourage your student to do most of the talking.
Frequently asked questions
Can I still teach English on Skype?
No – Microsoft retired Skype in May 2025. Existing users were offered a move to the free version of Microsoft Teams, which keeps the same contacts and chat history. For teaching, Zoom, Google Meet and Teams free all offer the essentials: video, screen share and a chat box for corrections.
How can I adapt these techniques for beginners?
Slow everything down and lean harder on the chat box: type key words as you say them, use pictures via screen share, and keep role-plays to two or three fixed lines. Correct less – at beginner level, confidence-building beats accuracy. The Survival English situations above work well even at elementary level if you feed the language first.
Do these techniques work for group lessons too?
Mostly, yes. Chat-box corrections become anonymous group corrections (which students prefer), and role-plays pair students with each other instead of with you. The big difference is talking time: in a group your job is to referee and monitor rather than be the conversation partner.
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Interested in learning how to teach English 1-1?
- Already TESOL trained? I'd recommend our: 20-hour Teaching English Online course
- Alternatively, add the above course to any of our accredited TESOL/TEFL training programmes to help build your own training package.
- Brush up your grammar with our 40 hour total online grammar course
- Discover our Teaching English Online Starter Pack comprising 20 online English lessons, teaching online guide and grammar eBook
- Already teaching online but looking for inspiration? Get our 20 online English lesson pack here >>
Our TESOL graduates are teaching English online:
- Read how Global English graduate, Lea Hook teaches English online
- Find out more about Magdalena's experience teaching English online for Palfish
Any questions on English teaching, TEFL or 1-to-1 video lessons? Ask the experts at Global English TESOL: Louisa or William