Teaching English Online:
When people think of teaching English, they immediately picture a classroom filled with students, and themselves front and center with a whiteboard behind them. However, there are thousands of individuals actually teaching from the comfort of their own home, via Skype or a similar communication application.
Teaching English online is a wonderful way to supplement your teaching income or earn a living. You get to meet people from all over the world and help them improve their English. You will help students achieve their goals, advance their careers, get into universities and many other very satisfying endeavors.
There are three ways of teaching English online
Independent
Having your own online English learning platform takes a lot of work and immense responsibility is needed.
Initially, you’ll need a website or blog and have to find various methods to promote yourself. There are many sites out there to create your own blog or website - some are free, some are not.
Pros: You can make the choices and do it your way. You also get paid more.
Cons: You’ll become a business owner and will therefore, be responsible for marketing, processing payments, customer service, scheduling, lessons, lesson plans, cancellation policies.
Additionally, you need to build your website, maintain it and keep it up to date.
In other words, you will do everything, including teaching.
Third Party
There are a lot of third party platforms, where you can post your presence and biography. Such websites act as a middle man.
Pros: They’ll connect you with students and market for you.
Cons: You won’t get paid as much because the companies receive a commission either from each class or a fee when the student is assigned to you. Different platforms ask for different amounts. Really study this path before going down it. You can register for free on some, but others require you to pay to be listed on their website or directory.
You can expect unreliable hours, unreliable students. You don’t have much support for the education side of things.
Online School
You’ll be part of a team of teachers teaching online in a ‘virtual school’. This means that you can develop as an instructor, especially if you don’t have much experience.
Pros: In this case, you tend to have more reliable hours and better students. You may ask what ‘better students’ are. They are those who take their learning seriously, and will turn up for their classes, ready and willing to learn English.
Such schools also offer a good online curriculum and educational and technical support when needed.
Cons: There is less pay per class and teachers must adhere to school policies. Just because the school is online, does not mean that the teacher is free to do as they please. In fact, it is much like a brick-and-mortar school and should be seen as such.
Check out our Teach English Online Certification program.
It's got everything you need to get started teaching English online.