Start Your Own Online English Teaching Business

You are expected to teach your students English, a language that is foreign to them. Every conference call, your objective is to teach an English concept that helps develop their communication skills. Therefore, you are expected to always be prepared for your online classes.

You’ll be brainstorming lessons that target the weaknesses of the student, creating lesson plans, assigning homework, and checking these homework much like a traditional teacher does.

Yes, you can. There are excellent non-native speakers who are loved by their students because they are good. However, make sure that you know English very well, and that includes your grammar and pronunciation skills.

Your students will come from different walks of life, of varying cultures, and of different ages. But if you want an overflowing number of students, I suggest that you target East Asian countries such as China, Japan, and South Korea. These countries know the importance of learning English, so they invest so much in it.

Before you buy computers and recruit teachers, I strongly suggest that you first learn the ins and outs of your future business by being an online English teacher yourself. And I don’t recommend going freelance either. I suggest that you browse through the Internet and find a company that hires and pays online English teachers well. Stay with the company for at least 6 months and learn as much as you can. Then, work as a freelance teacher, build your reputation, and eventually hire other teachers under your employ.

Here’s a step-by-step, crude guide on how to start an online English teaching business.

The Internet is your lifeline. If you’re not online, your business is dead -- it’s that simple. So invest in a stable Internet connection. It doesn’t have to be super fast, but at least fast enough to download and upload files without much difficulty.

If you don’t have a Paypal account, create one now. Choose a Premium account and verify it using a credit or debit card.

Once all the equipment is ready, it’s time to sit down and plan what kind of English classes or courses to offer. Are you going to offer grammar classes? Conversation courses? TOEIC Speaking classes? Are you going to offer these courses 30 minutes a day everyday, or an hour 3 times a week?

This is the main reason why I suggest that you work for a company first. This is to make sure that you understand the demands of your students.  

Here are some books that can help you get some ideas.

Create a website and optimize it so it shows up on Google’s web searches. Create Youtube videos demonstrating your teaching skills. Advertise using Google Adwords. Advertise your services in online classifieds. Join forums.

It may take a while before you finally reap the fruits of your labor, but it’s worth it.