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Adults taking online English courses here in the paper are those who are 18 years of age or more. They have different motivations, learning experience from younger learners, and online English teaching differs from offline English teaching in some ways, therefore special methodologies should be discussed in teaching English to adults online. There are many reasons why adults may have decided to attend online English courses. According to my observation, three of the most common reasons are: 1, For traveling abroad. 2, To communicate with colleagues or foreign customers. 3, To improve themselves (out of interest in languages). Out of my expectation, I have met many housewives who are taking online English classes, as well as some women on maternity leaves. They don’t want to be cut off from the society, so they try to learn something to keep up with the world, as most of they have previous English learning experience and language is a world-wide communication tool, what is more online learning is convenient and relatively cheaper, therefore online English learning is a perfect choice. Due to adults’ motivations, the key of teaching is to improve their communication abilities which means speaking and listening are prior to reading and writing. When applying ESA methods to online teaching for adults, it is always better to design more activities for them to talk or express their opinions. I would like to choose guided activities and creative communication when it comes to speaking activities in the class. The unique thing about online English teaching is that sometimes you can’t see learners’ faces. Though it is a live course, some adults are reluctant to show their appearances, which makes it difficult to monitor every learner. To guarantee every learner can participate in the class, the learners' numbers should be controlled within 4. If it is more than 4, then every learner may not be given adequate time to speak, since teachers could only master the effectiveness through voice, so it would be impossible to record everyone’s progress. Once again because adults’ motivations don’t lie in tests, then the teacher had better choose practical teaching materials. Authentic materials and created materials are both fine as long as they can arose learners’ interests. For online teaching, the learning materials are prepared ahead, so the teacher can follow the course or do some changes. From my experience, the courses are not always perfectly designed, then it won’t be a bad idea to replace unsuitable material with more appropriate material, and add extra material to reinforce a language point. When it comes to evaluate leaners’ progress, I focus on their fluency more than accuracy. I often check their pronunciation, reading fluency and speaking consistency. For Chinese is a quite different language from English, no mater in spelling nor grammar, so if the teacher emphasizes accuracy all the time, and the learners are not about to take exams, it could be a strike to learners’ confidence and self esteem, then they might be afraid of speaking English again, so the teacher may fail the learner objectives and personal aims. In general, teachers give adults online English classes should have a clear understanding of their motivations, then prepare learning materials according to their motivations and interests. The learners' numbers should be limited within four if it is not a lecture. Fluency comes before accuracy when evaluating adults’ performance.
