Have you been searching for online English teaching jobs? Have you been thinking about trying it for yourself, but are not sure where to start?
Teaching English online is a relatively new form of language teaching, and a rapidly expanding one. There are websites, schools, apps, and large businesses getting involved, and the demand for online English teachers is high.
This means that now is a good time to get on board. More and more are testing the waters for themselves. It is important to remember that the earlier you get in and gain experience, the more you will stand out from the crowd in the future.
Why Take Online English Teaching Jobs
Teaching online offers a new way to work from home, and there are a million reasons to do so. Let’s discuss a few.
Online English teaching jobs allow you to choose the hours you want to work, from a few hours every week to a full-time career. You can teach English online during the day, or at night. You can fit it in around your daily schedule, or you can make it your main source of income and a key part of your day.
Another benefit of teaching online is the incredible amount of potential students you have. You could be teaching a student in Brazil one lesson, and soon after a student in China. You could be teaching a high school student in Japan, and a Ukrainian the next.
Stemming from this, online English teaching jobs may be the only form of teaching where the teacher has a say in what students they teach! Want to teach only serious, motivated students who are pursuing an academic qualification? Want to work with businessmen to improve their formal spoken and written English? How about teaching elementary school students? You can choose, and you will be able to work with any and all kinds of students. The job is endlessly flexible.
Finally, of course, comes the most basic of reasons: money. Teaching may be a fun and rewarding job in itself, but nobody can work for free. And yes, you can make money with an online English teaching job.
Teaching Online
Now, there are MANY online English ‘teaching’ sites and apps, however, there is a reason for the quotation marks around ‘teaching.’
It is very important to remember the difference between teaching and chatting. And yes, you can simply be a person who chats in English to foreign students, and you will never run out of callers.
These will not be your students, however, and you will need to keep your rate incredibly low to maintain any income flow at all. This is not an article for you.
If you want to actually teach, then you need to consider how you are going to provide value to your students.
Here is what a language teacher should expect of themselves, at the very least:
- Patience: Give language students time to think and to prepare themselves. Give them space to speak and respond.
- Notes: Keep a notebook with records of student’s progress, just as you would in a real classroom. Make sure you know what you have taught, and what you will teach. Save these notes and keep checking them.
- Set goals early on: Again, just as in a real classroom, work with the student to understand why they are studying, and what they hope to achieve. Set goalposts and markers towards reaching those goals.
- Feedback: Let the student know where their strengths lie and how successful they have been so far, but also let them know where there is area for improvement. Always seek to motivate a student, not demotivate them, and make sure they understand how they can continue to improve.
- Know what you are teaching: It is not enough to speak English, you need to understand it. Just because the job is online does not mean you should not consider the value of a CELTA/TESOL or similar qualification. There is a huge amount of literature and research into language teaching; use it! It is possible to teach English online with no degree, but getting qualified makes the job more rewarding.
These are just a few things to bear in mind when considering an online English teaching job, and will mean that your students keep coming back and are willing to pay a decent rate to do so.