I am Hakima El Hansaly. I am an ESL teacher from Morocco with over 3 years of experience teaching learners of various levels, ages, and nationalities. Teaching English is more than just a profession for me—it’s a passion that connects me with learners worldwide. I officially teach online with a sophisticated language center in Morocco, and I also work as a freelancer.
In this blog, I’m going to guide you through the process of teaching online and share my passion and enthusiasm for elevating online education and challenging the preconceived notions that exist in this field.
One of the first things I noticed about teaching online is how it opened doors to meeting learners from all over the world—different cultures, backgrounds, and time zones. Honestly, there’s nothing quite like watching a student’s skills and confidence grow, lesson by lesson. Even though we’re separated by screens, I’m constantly amazed by how real and meaningful our connections can become. Each class reminds me that learning really does have the power to bring people together, no matter where we are. In addition, I am selective about my learners I teach online. I prefer to focus on individual classes because I want my students to learn comfortably and receive personalized attention. My overall goal is to help them feel confident speaking and unafraid of making mistakes. Moreover, what I find most rewarding is the positive and encouraging feedback I receive from my students after each session. I make sure to ask them for their reflections after each session so I can continually improve my teaching.
A crucial point to highlight is that I incorporate numerous teaching strategies and approaches, including Multimodal resources, differentiated instruction, and a flipped classroom. When it comes to multimodal resources, I tend to use various types such as texts, images, audio, video, and gestures. These resources help learners understand and produce the language because multimodal teaching recognizes that people have different learning styles and combines these methods to make learning effective and reach the desired results. For instance, I ensure to play a video clip with subtitles for beginner and elementary students, show related images, and provide a written transcript while teaching new topic-related vocabulary. Similarly, I focus on differentiated instruction to ensure all students can understand the target language. What I basically focus on here is adjusting my teaching methods and materials to meet the diverse needs, skill levels, and learning styles of students. In my online classes, I involve varying tasks, grouping, and scaffolding in order to ensure all students can understand.
Another practical approach I use is a flipped classroom in which I try to reverse the traditional teaching mode. Instead of learning new content in the online class and doing practice or homework at home, I assign my students a video or a reading to watch before class. Class time is then used for interactive activities, discussions, and practice.
Furthermore, I strongly believe in using a learner-centered approach that encourages participation and critical thinking. Also, I integrate tools such as videos (YouTube, NotebookLLM, Canva...), quizzes (Wayground, Wordwall, ...), and virtual whiteboards to keep my students engaged. I forcefully ensure to combine communicative language teaching with task-based learning to make lessons practical and enjoyable.
As an online ESL teacher, curriculum developer, and instructional designer, I believe in CPD. Continuous Professional Development has played a major role in growing as a teacher. I make it a crucial point to stay updated with the current changes and trends in ESL teaching and educational technology. Speaking of which, I constantly attend webinars and complete TEFL certification courses (TeachingEnglish—British Council, Cambridge University, and American TESOL Academy...) to expand and enhance my teaching skills and get to know the newest effective teaching pedagogies. I am currently exploring the effectiveness of AI in enhancing education and how it has opened new possibilities for personalized learning. Various AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Manus, Gemini, and more, have contributed on a large scale to embedding AI-generated lessons in my curricula, and I have achieved satisfactory results in their effectiveness on my students. It’s all about the correct implementation of these lessons. In other words, I don’t just copy and paste the given results. What I do here I give the AI tool a highly developed prompt that includes my target language, the focused skills, the level and age of the learners, and differentiated instruction.
Like many teachers, I have run into many challenges while teaching online. There have been days when a weak internet connection interrupted lessons, or times when students struggled with basic tech skills—like not knowing how to share their screen so I could check their work. To overcome this, I usually show my students how to use Google Meet before the session, like showing them videos or sharing articles to learn how to use the platform. What I appreciate the most is that they are responsive and keen to learn more about this. But honestly, facing these obstacles has made me more resourceful and pushed me to come up with creative, practical solutions that make my teaching better. Likewise, flexibility, empathy, and patience remain at the heart of successful online teaching.
Looking ahead, I aim to spread my mission to inspire students not just to learn English, but to use it as a tool for personal and professional growth. I witness the sparkle in my students’ eyes and their enthusiasm and motivation to learn, whether in Business English or General English Conversation. Also, I’m passionate about continuing to teach students who have a love for the language, and they share a similar passion and admiration, although they are absolute beginners and don’t know anything about the language. When I see the progress they make and start speaking the language, I won’t trade that feeling for anything.
Hakima El Hansaly
Online ESL Teacher
Morocco