Teaching English online

Question

Can anybody give me some tips of what I must do to start teaching English online? Does one get assistance from this website? I have nearly 3 years experience in Taiwan behind me. Could you be so kind to get this lady going again, or just of how to get going?

Chiliblossom · Accepted Answer

Hello Catharina,

It seems you posted this awhile back so I'm not sure if you still need some tips. Most of us that teach online use Skype, MSN, Yahoo Messenger or any other instant messenger that allows voice chatting. For me, the one that has worked best is Skype. It offers the best call quality and it has very useful features such as desktop sharing. There are other great collaboration tools, but even though they have a lot of cool features, I would recommend you start with Skype first.

You will need a headset or a webcam with microphone. For clear communication, I recommend using a headset. I use webcam with microphone for back-up and it works extremely well. The webcam actually surprised me as to how well it works. I wear glasses so it's nice to get a break from the headphones now and then.

Now, about the students... you'll have to search high and low for them. It's definitely not a lucrative business. Has teaching ever been? Depending on where you live, you may be able to find more locally than you would online. Most of the people looking for English lessons online are looking for FREE lessons or free help. If you can find people looking for an ESL tutor in the paper and convince them to take online lessons, you may have better luck. Otherwise, there is a lot of competition out there and some people "teachers" who offer ridiculously cheap lessons making it hard for you to compete with them.

I've been teaching online for a little over a year. It's very time consuming: searching for students, placing ads, planning the lessons, correcting, giving feedback, etc., so I just decided to go back to the school I was working for, teaching English and Spanish the good ol' fashion way! At least there all I have to do is show-up, teach my class, hand in a progress report which takes 2 minutes of my time, and collect my money. I have kept some of my online students though.

Teaching online is great, you get the chance to meet so many people from all walks of life so I have not scratched it off my list entirely. However, the work that it entails is very frustrating. Another important thing, teaching online is NOT as rewarding as teaching face to face is.

Inzaghi · Answer

Great tips Chiliblossom! You point out the positive and negative aspects of it so one really has to consider if this is the right way to go.
Thanks.

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