How to teach listening in an online English class

To teach listening in an online English class, alternate between guided listening and comprehension checks within the live class itself: play an audio clip with your screen shared, ask what the student understood, and then use the lesson transcription so they can replay the parts where they got stuck.

Structure listening into three stages

Listening pays off more when you break the activity into clear stages, instead of just hitting play and asking whether they understood.

• Pre-listening: introduce the key vocabulary and the context before playing the audio.
• Listening: play the material while sharing your screen and the browser sound in the live class.
• Post-listening: check comprehension with questions, then show the transcription of the passage.

This format keeps the student from getting lost and turns the audio into a conversation, not a test.

Use screen sharing for audio and video

In Noladi's live classroom you teach right in the browser and share your screen with sound, so you can play a short podcast, a TV-show clip, or a dialogue straight in the class.

While the audio plays, write the tricky words on the collaborative whiteboard. The student follows along in real time and connects the sound to the spelling.

Prep the material ahead of time by linking a lesson to the class. The whiteboard opens already loaded, so you don't waste a minute setting up the activity in front of the student.

Let the student replay what tripped them up

The real listening gains come from repetition. After the class, the student opens the lesson review with the player and the synced transcription.

They click any word or passage and the video jumps to that moment, so they can replay just the part they didn't catch the first time. For individual words, there's synthesized-voice pronunciation, and you can translate passages on demand from English to Portuguese.

This solves the biggest limitation of listening in an online class: the student isn't stuck with whatever they heard just once.

Track progress with vocabulary and speaking

Each class generates a list of the new words that came up, with a count, plus speaking stats like talk time and pace.

You use this data to calibrate the next audio: if the student picked up vocabulary but spoke little, the next listening activity can end with a discussion about what they heard.

Reinforce listening between classes

Listening doesn't have to stop when the class ends. Through the Wall, you publish an audio clip or a lesson for the student to work on alone until the next session.

The student opens the post, completes the linked lesson, and asks questions right in the post itself. That way listening becomes a continuous habit, not just a 50-minute block once a week.

Frequently asked questions

How do you teach listening in an online English class

Play a short audio clip while sharing your screen with sound in the live class, jot the vocabulary on the whiteboard, and check comprehension with questions. Afterward, let the student replay the hard parts in the lesson review, which includes the transcription synced to the video.

How does the student review listening after the class

In the lesson review, the student watches the replay with the synced transcription. They click a word or passage to jump to that point, hear synthesized-voice pronunciation of words, and translate passages on demand. This lets them replay as many times as they need.

Can you send listening audio between classes

Yes. Through the Wall you publish materials and lessons for the student to work on between sessions. They open the post, start the linked lesson, and ask questions in the post, keeping active listening practice going outside the live class.

Want to teach English online with screen-shared audio and a lesson review with transcription so your student can practice listening afterward? Discover Noladi.