Online English Teaching - Very Promising!

Teaching English online has become common here in the Philippines. The main clients are from Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan and other neighbor countries in Asia. Filipinos are non-native speakers in English, but we have become so familiar with English, because English is the medium of instruction in schools – from Primary to Tertiary and we also take English as our second major language (next to Tagalog).

Teaching Online (station base) can also be considered working in a Call Center (but not into sales), because of its literal nature of the job (same as in Call Center jobs) - to make and take calls. It has also become the source of income for students who need part time job and professionals who want to use their spare time and earn extra.

Teaching English Online has 2 categories for teachers’ convenience:
1. Station Base – Teachers teach English online using the facilities provided by the center / company; from computer sets, internet connection and snacks. Teachers from this category must be in the center at least 15 minutes before the first class; so if the center is quite far from your house, you need to leave earlier and estimate the travel time to the center – to avoid tardiness.
2. Home Base – Teachers stay at the comforts of their homes; they should provide their own computer sets, DSL internet connection (at least 1 mbps) and must teach in a quiet area at home – free from the disturbances of housemates, vehicle sounds and dog-barking noise.

Although teaching English online is not that stressful compared to other Call Center jobs, but it still requires attentiveness, punctuality, creativity, sensitivity, confidence and most of all – teaching skills.

Here are some of the tips to become an effective English teacher.
- English skills should be very good or excellent.
- Very good teaching skills lead to having more and regular students.
- Be a good manager of your time - If you have straight classes, make sure that you
are able to open and close each class gracefully; manage your time wisely and
wrap-up the lessons well.
- Be Informative to your students – learning English from other countries is
expensive, so they should learn a lot from you – because you are paid to do so. Be
updated always with the current events and happenings internationally and you must
always have opinions on each topic being discussed in class.
- Multitasking is must – you should be able to talk to the students while typing,
doing the corrections, presenting your lesson plans, etc - without noticing that
you are doing more than 1 tasks.
- Touch typing is always an advantage – if you don’t need to look for the letters on
the computer, then it saves much time and less pressures.
- Be a friend - if students find you nice and friendly, they want to have you some more in class.
It should always be a two-way success: You earn and students learn! ^_^