Is It Worthy to Teach Online?

Teaching online is a great way to earn money at home. In addition, creating a timetable based on your own time, living a balanced life, and choosing the place you’d like to work around the world is no longer an impossible thing. Still, someone will ask himself or herself a question: is it worth teaching online? The answer is absolute yes. Every job has its advantages and disadvantages, but online teaching has been proven that it is worth it. Our exploration of some of the basic questions and the biggest problems that some former online teachers have met will give you a satisfactory answer.

Why is it so popular to teach English online?

Flexibility and high wages are two important reasons that make online English so popular.

Undoubtedly, it can be considered as a wonderful job for housewives (or househusbands) of knowledge, travelers on the way, and anyone who wants a part-time job to earn some extra money or build a side passion into a larger business.

But early morning hours, inconsistent booking, and disappointment with company decisions will make online English challenging for teachers.

Here are some available job positions to teach online.

Well, there are five considerations to be aware of when you are deciding if you are going to teach English online in detail.

1. The excitement and frustration about being independent contractors

Working with a company as an online English teacher is equal to be an independent contractor.

You have to buy yourself health insurance and endowment Insurance since your online ESL company will not do pay these insurances for you. And it also means that the company you work for is not guaranteeing you any work. Hence, what you need is to build up your schedule and increase your teaching time so as to ensure a certain amount of income.

On the other hand, you are more in control of your schedule and are free to choose the company you’d like to cooperate with.

2. The challenge of work hours and time zones

Teaching English online gives you the opportunity as well as challenges to educate students from all over the world in different time zones, which means you should make effort to switch your time zone to make sure you don't miss any classes!

For instance, if your students live in China while you in Britain, they will be 10 hours ahead of you. Are you an early bird or a late sleeper? If you're an early bird, this might be a big chance for you, teachers can teach before their kids wake up.

3. Different bookings between companies and teachers.

Many different types of online teaching jobs exist on the market. There are mainly two ways of booking classes: the first one is that online learning companies book classes for their teachers; the other one is that companies like VIPKid and GoGokid, asking parents to book the teachers

Both systems have pros and cons, so you have to decide which one to choose, or you can try both to figure out which one suits you best. You will have the pressure to market yourself or worry about the consistency of your bookings if your company book the classes for you. While its negative side is they don’t always give you enough bookings so you may have to earn yourself more bookings.

If you are an experienced teacher with a great profile and a good reputation with your parents, the second one will suits you better because your time and schedule are all in control of yourself. It’s more flexible.

4. Work in isolation

Loneliness is an inevitable drawback of working from home. Make an effort to communicate with others to maintain good relationships, or you may lose balance in your daily life.

Be careful! Teaching at home can also lead to unnecessary burnout. Besides, if you are too eager to teach more students to earn more money, it will cause some mental problems. To avoid these hazards, you should take some measures such as organizing actual social activities, setting proper goals, developing healthy hobbies, and taking some breaks to keep a good mood.

5. The Limited flexibility

The flexibility is one of the biggest merits of online teaching that has attracted many people who want to teach English online. You can manage your time and change your working hours when you need to. But you should be aware of pitfalls that are brought by the flexibility. Working from home can be a big change if you the person who likes a 9-5 schedule. So currently we invited two online teachers, Melany and Jenny, to talk about their opinions on online English teaching.

Is it hard work?

Melany: Absolutely! While from a different aspect, once you are accustomed to working in the early hours, you will appreciate your spare time in the afternoon.

Jenny: This is a change from the traditional 9-5 position. Since your students learn around the world, jet lag can affect your working time. You are allowed to pick your schedule sometimes, and once you get used to it, you gain a work schedule that suits you best!

What are the challenges of being an online mentor? If so, what are your methods to deal with it?

Melany: The hours can be really challenging, especially if trying to balance a social life. Luckily some of my friends also teach online, so we were able to support each other and schedule things during traditional ‘work’ hours. There are a lot of online support groups of online teachers now available.

Time can be very challenging. It is difficult for you to build up a balance between work and life. Fortunately, some of my friends are also online English teachers. Hence, we can be each other’s backup and arrange matters during the classic "working time" together. Many online support groups for online teachers are a great help for us as well.

Jenny: I can manage my time according to my schedule. Besides, I have gotten more spare time than I expect. I even have more choices to search for different careers and keep working online.

Conclusion

In today's rapidly changing digital world, online English learning is a great chance for lots of people.

Of course, not everyone is able to do this job. If you work with children with the right mindset and love, it can be a valuable job and a great way to get a teaching experience.

Patience, love, and love working with children are basic requirements of online English teaching. It will be a valuable job that will give you an amount of teaching experience. By the way, a good salary will also tempt you.

Now you find out if it is worth teaching English online. If you are ready, check here for vacant job opportunities to start your teaching career.