Pros and cons of going solo as an Online Teacher
Being an Online Teacher and teaching direct students may sound like a dream to many English Teachers that are tired of paying commissions to online teaching companies and being seen as entertainers/salespeople rather than educators. However, all that glitters is not gold, and there are also many drawbacks to going solo as an Online Teacher (and not many people are talking about them).
My name is Mary and about 3 years ago I was seduced by the possibility of setting my own rates and having a flexible schedule while working from home.
After many years working for language schools around the world, I thought that finding my own direct students would allow me to spend more time with my kids, have more freedom to create or adapt my own materials and choose the kind of students I wanted to teach. And I was right. Well, partially right.
How difficult is it to get your own students when you are an Online Teacher?
Going solo can be a bit hard at the beginning if you lack marketing skills. But this should not be a problem nowadays, as there are innumerous free courses on the Internet to help you improve your advertising skills. If you persevere for a few weeks and post your ads on the right social media groups (watch my video “How to get direct students” ) a basic Facebook profile and Instagram account ought to do the job and you may get your first direct learners pretty soon.
The beauty of this job is that – if you are an efficient and charismatic teacher (believe me, sometimes charisma matters more than certain abilities), recommendations will follow and you will never have to spend time marketing yourself again.
Luckily, I´ve reached this point, so if I’m in need of students (during summer holidays for instance), I just ask my current students to recommend me to their friends and the magic happens! Come on, according to the British Council, there are an estimated 1.5 billion people currently learning English across the globe, so go and find them!
The bright side of going solo
It is true that my rates are better than the rates companies have offered me in the past, I´ve got no commuting costs and I don’t have to batch cook anymore as I work just some metres away from my kitchen. Well, and no money is spent on clothes nor shoes, given students can barely see my torso on the camera. It is also true that I can teach whatever I judge to be the best for each student and in any order as I don´t have a set curriculum to follow.
I can change my lesson plan in the middle of the class if I realise it’s not working and I can test them weekly (or never test them) using my own methods. I can swap classes around in case I have a medical appointment, I can cancel lessons if an unexpected personal situation arises and I can teach from anywhere in the world, as long as I´ve got a clear background and reliable wifi.
However, most advantages mentioned above can be also seen as disadvantages, it just depends on the point of view.
“By others’ faults wise men correct their own” (American proverb)
Working from home has brought me more medical problems in 3 years than I had had in my whole life. Even though I haven’t gained weight, sedentarism is associated with a wide range of chronic diseases. Add a pandemic to 40 hours of online lessons per week and your body becomes a ticking time bomb. Ah, and don’t forget the many hours you will have to spend talking to students on messaging apps, as they always have an extra question during your lunchtime, a new request when you are playing with your children, a text for you to correct on a Saturday or they just want to talk to you about their cat or their neighbour (which leads to my next disadvantage).
My advice would be: Force yourself to go out and see the world. Go for a walk, watch the sunset, dance! Don’t let yourself rot inside a house.
Then, it is REALLY hard to establish boundaries between personal and professional life when you teach your own students. Many will see you as their therapist (countless days I had students crying in front of the camera for various reasons) and if you are not aware and in control of digression, you may end up talking about their toxic relationships instead of phrasal verbs.
Building rapport is certainly an important part of teaching but losing the focus can lead to students blaming you for not passing their exams. It can also be very draining for yourself as a teacher, as we are not prepared to deal with psychological unstable students and may feel really bad for not being able to help them. My advice here would be: let them talk about their personal life for a few minutes, ask about their day/week during the warm-up part of your lesson. And then stop.
We can also mention the financial instability during some seasons.
Christmas, for instance, tends to be a terrible season for self-employed teachers, as no one is interested in learning languages while everyone else is visiting Santa Claus. So you really have to plan your finances ahead, otherwise you may end up crying on New Year’s eve while seeing photos of your students skiing in Switzerland.
Also important to remember that you are responsible for chasing students’ payments!
I work with 10-lesson packs (always paid in advance). Once the pack is finished, I inform them a new payment needs to be made. Most of the time, this means I will have to send them 3 or 4 messages before they actually make a new bank transfer. It’s tiring and really uncomfortable. My advice would be to have clear rules from the beginning, so create your own policies (in case of last-minute cancellations, delays in payments etc) and get them to agree with them before starting selling them lessons.
And finally, regarding the materials, it is indeed a great thing to have freedom to teach what best suits your students, but creating your own slides for every single student can be exhausting! What I tend to do is to use some ready-to-use lessons from the British Council (or any other free) website or create lessons that can suit all levels, so I can use the same material with different students (watch my video How to Plan Online Lessons for ALL LEVELS )It is also helpful to find a niche (for example, Business English or Exam preparation), as you can use the same topics and exercises for most of your students and can really save some time while preparing your lessons.
So… what is my verdict?
All in all, I’d personally recommend teachers who are looking for better rates and more flexibility to give freelance teaching a go, especially the ones who are into a nomadic lifestyle (which is my case). But do try to anticipate the problems mentioned above, so they don’t happen to you, or if they do, you are prepared for them!
Good luck being your own boss and happy teaching!
By Mary Correia
So true we have to look after ourselves when working remotely ! It is really easy to forget there is life out there when teaching online! Thanks for this
Thanks a lot for sharing it!