Teaching English Online

Now even more than ever, teaching online has become a primary method of education due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Teaching online definitely has its benefits, but like all jobs it comes with pitfalls. It’s not all doom and gloom though, the pandemic has shown us that it’s possible to work remotely from anywhere in the world! You will still have good days and bad days while teaching English online, but the most important thing I’ve taken away from 11 months of teaching English online is the incredible students that you will connect with from all over the world. I truly believe that you can become more empathetic, worldly and understanding simply through sitting at your laptop and having conversations about countless topics with people of different ages from all over the world.

When you’re working long hours staring at your computer and listening intently to your students, of course it can get tiring. I talk about How to Avoid Burnout while Teaching Online in this blog. The good definitely outweighs the bad and I hope my comprehensive list below can help to guide you to the decision of whether teaching English online is the right thing for you or not. 

Your eyes will be strained and dry at times, you will need copious amounts of coffee and you will, absolutely, one hundred percent need a good internet connection. But let’s dive right in and see if Teaching English online is the right decision for you!

Pros

1. Make money whilst working from anywhere in the world!
2. Meet amazing people 
3. Learn about different cultures, societal systems, industries
4. Hone your skills as a language teacher
5. Become inspired to learn a second language 
6. Create your own lesson plans suitable for all ages and abilities
7. Find ready made free lesson plans online to ease your workload (find amazing teaching websites here)
8. Get experience teaching kids and adults
9. You don’t always have to get paid solely for lessons, you can get paid for making audio recordings of books, proofreading and editing material
10. Choose when you work and how much you get paid (depending on the platform)
11. You can work on various platforms just in case you don’t get accepted on one doesn’t mean you won’t be on others
12. Find your identity as a teacher and your teaching philosophy

Cons

• You need a decent laptop or computer, as well as most importantly a stable internet connection, headphones and a microphone.
• Working online can be lonely and isolating, of course you get to interact with your students but rarely with other teachers (depending on the platform you choose)
• It can be difficult to get out of the house to get fresh air after a long day sitting at your computer
• Teaching back to back lessons can be draining
• You can easily get burnt out if you don’t prioritise your own wellbeing – it’s easy to schedule lots of classes in advance then realize it’s too much to handle at the time.
• You may have difficult students. The vast majority of students are absolute angels, they want to learn and discover new information. However you will find that your teaching style may not match some students’ needs, or that some students are taking lessons because of work or because their parents want them to and they may not be as enthused about the lessons.
• You get paid for lessons but you don’t get paid for lesson planning. At the beginning, lesson planning will probably take a large chunk of your time outside of actually teaching lessons. This workload can be eased by finding free resources which you can use to build your lessons which saves a massive amount of time!
• If you don’t work, you don’t get paid, unless you are on a contract. For me, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid. So if I want a week off, I just decide to work some extra hours the week before and the week after.
• You might have to work on various platforms, this can be a con because then you have to schedule both platforms accordingly and get paid via two websites.
• You can’t teach from cafes generally because you need to talk a lot and sometimes loudly depending on the type of student.