How to teach English idioms in online classes

Teaching English idioms in an online class works when you present each idiom inside a real situation, have the student say it out loud right away, and make sure they can review it later. A loose list of "most common idioms" doesn't stick with anyone.

If you teach private English lessons, you've seen this happen: the student laughs at "it's raining cats and dogs", writes it down, and two weeks later can't even remember what it means.

Why idioms are so hard to teach

An idiom doesn't translate word for word. "Break the ice" has nothing to do with ice, and students tend to translate literally and get stuck.

Idioms also depend on register. "Hit the sack" fits a chat with a friend, not a work email. Without that context, the student uses it in the wrong place and sounds odd.

Then there's frequency. In an online English class, the idiom shows up once, in the middle of another activity, and disappears. Without spaced repetition, it never becomes active vocabulary.

How most teachers teach idioms today

The most common approach is the list: a PDF or slide with 20 expressions, the meaning next to each one and an example sentence. The student reads it, understands it, and never uses it.

Another option is sending a YouTube video or a series with subtitles. It helps with exposure, but the teacher loses track of what the student actually practiced.

After class, the review usually ends up on WhatsApp: you type the expressions that came up, with a quick explanation. That message gets lost between voice notes and payment reminders.

Flashcard apps like Quizlet help with memorization, but they pull the expression out of the conversation where it appeared. The student knows the definition and doesn't know when to use it.

What actually works for teaching idioms

A good method for teaching English idioms has a few clear steps:

• Context before definition. Show the expression inside a mini situation and ask the student to guess the meaning.
• Speaking it right away. The student needs to say the expression in their own sentence, about their own life, during the class.
• Few per class. Three to five well-practiced expressions go further than twenty read once.
• Visual record. Expression, meaning, register (formal or informal) and a sentence from the student, somewhere they can reopen.
• Review with their own voice. Hearing the moment they used the idiom sticks much better than rereading a list.

What's usually missing is that last part. The class happens, the expression comes up in conversation, and there's no record of that specific moment.

How Noladi helps you teach idioms online

With Noladi, your English class happens in the live classroom with a collaborative whiteboard, where you lay out the expressions, the student writes their own sentences alongside you, and you can even prepare the lesson before the session. Afterward, the board can be downloaded as a PDF.

When the class ends, the post-class review shows the lesson with synchronized transcription. The student clicks the sentence where they used the idiom and jumps straight to that moment in the video, hears the correct pronunciation of words, translates excerpts on demand and sees the list of new words from the class. AI suggestions point out grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary corrections with explanations, which helps when they used the expression in the wrong register.

You teach the idiom live; the student reviews the expression in the real context where it came up.

Get to know Noladi

If you want the idioms from your English classes to stop dying on WhatsApp, check out Noladi at noladi.app/teacher and try the live classroom with post-class review.