Teaching ESL From Home

[Saille]

It hit me this morning that my work life has changed a lot over the past few years, and b/c I'm not on here much, it hadn't occurred to me that my experience might be useful to anyone else who needs to earn income but has a homeschooler's schedule. 

Some of the old-timers know that I tutored for a national brick-and-mortar franchise for years. When I moved to Indiana, I discovered that there was a discretionary pay scale for individual centers, and that my previous boss had been at the high end of it. My new boss...was not. The nature of tutoring center hours meant that I was leaving as soon as my kids finished school for the day, and that wasn't working out well for anybody. I tried writing for a marketing firm for a while, but I hit a point where I either needed to go full time, or watch someone else take that spot and sacrifice any consistency as far as income. So that wasn't great, either. I tried Tinkergarten and loved it, but it's not enough income to offset how much it interferes with our homeschooling schedule.

Then I ran across an ad to teach ESL online. And THAT worked out very well. There are a lot of companies out there, and they have different hiring qualifications, teacher/student ratios, pay rates, lesson formats, etc.. There are facebook groups about most of them, so it's easy to do research. (One group that might be helpful is Online ESL Reviews...it's geared toward teachers rather than students.) You're self-employed, so you'd need to file quarterly taxes, but that's not tough to do.

I ended up teaching for VIPKID, which requires a Bachelor's and some teaching experience, but they've typically defined that loosely. It's a well-known company that operates out of China, and they offer TESOL training. You videoconference with your student, and the lesson is set up in a Powerpoint format with screen drawing. Lessons are 25 minutes long. You work on BJT hours, so it's either early in the morning or on Friday/Saturday nights. There are lots of teachers who've made a full time job out of working overnight. I personally get up early and teach from 6-9 or 6-10. They pay much better than the tutoring center I was at. I've had one raise, and I'm making triple the federal minimum wage. I've been with them for almost two years, and I like my job a lot. It's important to have a really stable internet connection (I hardwire just to be safe) and a backup plan in case of outages. And I will say that their cancellation policy is strict. But there's a die-hard group of teachers who travel the world and teach from wherever they are. I've taught from my in-laws' house and other places we've traveled, so it's a pretty flexible gig. And one particular pro about VIPKID is that you set your own hours week to week, which isn't true for all companies.

At any rate, a lot of us sacrifice income to homeschool, and it can be a big point of stress. And while there's plenty of talk about working from home, I remember spending hours chasing down work, only to discover that a lot of "job opportunities" either paid peanuts or were shady. So hopefully this helps someone out.

If you do apply to my company specifically, I'm happy to answer questions throughout the hiring process, and if you have a question about another company and can't find an answer, I can see if I can find the answer on one of the VIPKID groups. I'd only ask that if I invest my time in helping a specific person get hired by VIPKID, you use that link above to apply rather than going in through Google.

[ashfern]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I may do this after we move & get settled.

[Saille]

4 hours ago, Medicmom2.0 said:

I’ve heard that the hiring process is difficult and they’re looking for very animated, peppy teachers.  Otherwise I’d be interested.

 

I'd say this is true, but also that I never thought of myself as particularly peppy before I did this job. The thing is, you exist in a small square on your student's screen. So you learn how to make good use of that space, light it well, exaggerate your facial expressions a bit, because you can't convey that energy in person in a less obvious way. Also, your reactions and overall energy affirm an activity that feels scary...trying to communicate in a second language to a native speaker. Being enthusiastic and affirming relaxes the student and encourages risk-taking. But there are all kinds of teachers. There are folks who wear silly hats and sunglasses, and I'm totally not one of those. I get the "serious teacher" tag in feedback a lot, which to my students' parents means that I'm detail-oriented when it comes to things like proper pronunciation and grammar knowledge. 

[katilac]

@Saille do you think a certain type of demo is preferable?