The very look of English classes has undergone a sea change, thanks to the innovative teaching experiments and the popularity of the Internet. It is not enough to observe that the traditional English classes, dominated mostly by teacher-student interaction and rigorous training of grammar, have been replaced and changed thoroughly; it must also be noted that the latest form of English classes have almost done away with everything that have so far been accepted and innovated by the orthodox scholars and even those of the ELT (English language Teaching), the CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) and the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).

New Ingredients Replacing the Old Ones

Let us, now, have a look at these new inclusions in the scenario of English classes that have brought about the revolutionary changes. The changes, like any other reconstructions, have some merits as well as demerits. In this new online e-system of education, you need not go to school or teacher’s home. The entire class room virtually appears before your eyes on the screen of the computer at your drawing room! You can join as many online English classes as you feel necessary. A student has options for joining any numbers of English classes operated by several private and public agencies in one or several countries. Online English classes are without boundaries, no territorial issues can limit its activities. Therefore, the questions of passport and visa, etc are non-issues. A student of Mexico can easily join an Indian classroom, or a North Korean young girl can join an English class operated by a teacher of President Donald Trump’s country, the US!

Its Merits

• The best thing about the online English e-classroom is that one does not have the trouble of attending classes on a particular day and time. Any time the virtual classroom is available to you. Just switch on the computer and learn. You Tube English class is an example.
• Classes are normally prerecorded videos; so one may attend as many lessons as one decides to do. The issue of comfortable time and place is your own choice.
• You need not unnecessarily feel shaky about the progresses. In case you need, you can just go to the same lesson as many times as needed.
• The teaching service may be paid or free, it does not affect the quality of teaching. No issue of discrimination arises in the system. More interestingly, you can’t see other students sitting at their respective drawing rooms all over the world.
• The age of the student does not pose any problem whatsoever – you maybe just 10 or even 90 years’ old and can be a student of online English classes.

Its Demerits

• It is a virtual world of English classroom. It may be as good as a real class, but it is without the human touch associated with a traditional classroom experience.
• The online English classroom teacher has maximum limitations as he/she cannot address the special needs of students. Lectures are pre-recorded and they are based on general presumptions and anticipations that may not be always true. Both of exceptionally good and exceptionally bad students suffer much from this system.

Conclusion

Taking into considerations all the issues already taken up above, it can be fairly observed that online English classes have more merits than demerits. One has to accept the changes of time and technology. The old education system as practiced by philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and the Indian sages have for long been discarded by the new form of medieval monastery education system and then again by the modern form of schooling and tutoring system. In our time, new technological knowhow has made so many old techniques outdated. Modern online system of education is one of them. All over the world now, schools, colleges and even universities have readily acknowledged the new technology and teaching aids. The system has, of course, widened the scope of education and many problems, such as time, money, accessibility of students to schools and universities, etc have been drastically reduced because of the newly discovered educational measures. So far as the teaching/learning of the English language is the issue; it has, no doubt, vastly benefitted the world. The number of the available English language classes on the Internet is a glaring example of the success of the online English classes.