What Every ESL Teacher Should Know Before Working at an English School
We believe that teaching English should be fun.
Most people decide to teach English because it is a fun, rewarding career.
You can make a decent income while helping other people learn “your” language.
Plus English teaching is mostly a part time job that gives you great flexibility with your time.
Want to have English classes late in the evening after putting kids to bed?
Or have a few free hours in the afternoon before going for a jog?
Do some English teaching online!
English teachers have the flexibility to “get” hours that most normal 9-5 jobs don’t offer.
But finding the perfect English School to work is tricky
Unfortunately, there is a lot of “bait and switch” advertising and scamming techniques used in the ESL industry.
Most English language schools are used to over promising and underdelivering, resulting in a high turnover in English teachers.
In other words, you should not just at the “raw” hourly rate when applying for English teaching jobs.
Here are some key things you should consider when finding the perfect English school for you to work.
Does the English school pay you for cancelations?
Cancellations and no shows are part of any appointment driven business.
We have all signed up for things and not showed up.
But as a service provider, it is important that you get compensated for “no shows” that happen when you had a confirmed appointment.
Unfortunately, this is very grey area in the field of English language teaching.
For example, some ESL schools end up not paying for student cancellations that happen in the last 24 hours without any notice.
This makes the teachers feel “busy” but at most times they are working for free or waiting online for students to show up.
At Spoken English Practice, we pay teachers for cancellations by students without 24 hour notice.
It is the right thing to do.
Do you have to do free trial lessons or are you paid for trial lessons?
The other equally confusing area is trial lessons.
Does the English school that you work for require you to do free trial lessons
Are you paid for trial classes even if the students does not sign up later?
The ESL industry has a very high percentage of free trial requests.
Most students like to get free trials before joining a English Speaking course.
If the English school wants you to do free trial lessons, you will end up spending a huge amount of your time doing free trials resulting in loss of income.
At Spoken English Practice, we pay for every trial lesson a teacher does. It does not matter whether the trial lesson is paid, discounted or free. It does not matter whether the trial students converts in to a paying student or not).
Interested in joining an English School that is transparent, fun and rewarding?
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Does the English School actively find you students or do you have to do your own marketing?
There are some companies that are only “teacher profile boards”.
These companies ask teachers to record lengthy sample videos and write extensive lesson plans – all time consuming and cumbersome tasks.
Sadly, very few students actually buy lessons from you, even after doing all this!
Teachers waste huge amounts of time setting up these profile pages with little return.
Spoken English Practice’s model is different.
We are not a “teacher profile board”. We invest a lot of money on advertising and finding new students.
Teacher’s at Spoken English Practice receive a steady flow of new (and interesting) students every week without having to worry about recording sample lessons or boosting their profiles.
We have a specialized marketing and content team that does all that for you.
This allows you to do what you do best: Teaching English.
Does the English School offer a transparent payment plan?
There are English language schools that require teachers to pay for setting up profiles and “special” training.
This is absurd! Teacher’s should not have t0 pay money to get started.
Also, some English schools deduct around 20% of your paycheck claiming various taxes, currency conversion fees, and bank transfer fees.
There are also instances where payments are held or delayed for cases of student dissatisfaction.
Spoken English Practice stays away from these malpractices.
We keep our payment structure simple, transparent and honest. You get paid exactly what we promise you. Nothing is hidden or complicated.
This transparency and honesty also makes our hourly rates “seem” lower compared to some competitors but we are ok with it.
How does the English School find students?
This is point neglected by a lot of English teachers but we feel it is very important for job satisfaction.
If you are serious about teaching English for a school, try to find early in the interview process how the school finds students.
There are many English schools that partner with shady “farm” schools in countries like China, that act as intermediaries/brokers/agents to provide new students.
Most of these “farm” schools promise students that they can become fluent in English by memorizing a few grammar concepts.
Gullible students fall prey to these cheap selling tactics.
The result is a long, miserable set of lessons for both the teacher and student; The student continuously expecting miracles and the teacher having to be part of a long chain of lying and deceit.
Reputable English schools like Spoken English Practice stay away from tactic.
In fact, we don’t have partnerships with any farms schools, brokers or agents.
Students can only buy lessons through our website, www.SpokenEnglishPractice.com
We don’t sugar coat – we tell students that improving English takes a lot of practice.
As a result students that find us and join our English classes know exactly what to expect from our teachers.
This approach certainly makes us lose a few students who expect over night results but the students who end up joining lessons are realistic, logical and smart. Most importantly, this makes it easier for teachers to do their jobs.
This also means that we have higher “overhead” – we have to invest heavily in finding the right type of student.
What type of students does the English courses cater to?
There are some English language programs that only teach English to kids.
There are other that target Business English learners and adult students.
As a teacher, you should think what type of students you want to work with.
Do you prefer teaching beginner level basic English grammar or conversational English classes?
Do you want to work with adult or kids? Or a mix?
Do you prefer teaching to students who don’t know any English or students who already know some English?
Is following a lesson plan your thing or do you prefer free open discussions?
All these factor in for job satisfaction.
We try to offer teachers a mix of students – adults, kids, professionals, university students etc, from various different countries.
We think English teaching jobs are more fun when you have a diverse set of students. We want you to learn from students as much as they are learning from you.
Since, students are from various time zones and not just from 1 country, you can pick the times you are most comfortable with. You don’t have to wake up at 3 AM!
P.S. Also, we don’t ask teachers to write reports. Life is too short for boring reports that no one reads.
Is the English school online or offline?
This is really a personal choice but really think what you want.
Some English schools are online based. Some want you to travel to a different country and live there.
If you like to move to another country, you will have to get visa’s, pay for immigrations fees, find housing etc.
Some schools offer to cover all this but don’t expect to be staying at Four Seasons!
Online teaching is a lot easier. You just need internet! You just need to find a quite place in the house.
