5 reasons why Online English Teaching is a great career

Interested in an career in Online English teaching? You have come to the right place! At Spoken English Practice, we have a fantastic group of teachers who work with our students from all over the world.

Here are some reasons why it’s a fantastic way to make a living:

Online English teaching can be done from wherever you are, as long as you can get online

Because all our classes take place online via Skype, our teachers can be situated anywhere in the world. Classes are scheduled between 2 a.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern time, so there’s a lot of flexibility in the hours they can work with students. As long as they have a functioning high-quality internet connection, they’re all set!

Online English teaching is also a job you can do full-time, part-time, or somewhere in between. You can base yourself in one place, travel the world, or temporarily relocate to another country and still be able to earn some money doing something you love.

You’ll meet people from all over the world and learn about other cultures

Students who learn conversational English from our teachers come from all corners of the globe and include children, university students, businesspeople, and even retirees. Since students determine the topics of conversation in their classes (at most times), our teachers get regular peeks into the lives, homes, food, hobbies, and cultural traditions of the people they are working with. Interacting with a student in a far-away part of the world can inspire teachers to travel to places they’ve never been or even learn a new language themselves!

Interested in an a career in Online English teaching? Read some of our teacher bios here.

You’ll get to use your skills and expertise every day

How many people study a subject for four (or more) years at university and then get a job where they barely use the hard-earned knowledge and skills they learned? If you’re an ESL, English, or Communications graduate and you’re working as a teacher for Spoken English Practice, you’re exercising those muscles every single day, explaining grammar, sentence structure, and syntax, as well as helping to expand your students’ English vocabularies. The more you teach, the stronger your fundamental knowledge base becomes, so teaching gets easier and more enjoyable every day.

You’ll have a positive impact on the lives of your students

There are as many reasons to learn English as there are students doing it. When you start working with a new student, you may learn their motivation for improving their spoken English, or you may not – it depends on what they want to discuss. But never doubt that by helping them get better at speaking English, you are effecting significant change in their lives.

Speaking English opens a lot of doors around the world because it is the business language in so many countries now. People who want to emigrate from their country to an English-speaking one may need language fluency before they will be accepted as a candidate by their new chosen country. They may need it in order to be promoted to a better-paying position that can help them support their family or feel like a success. They may want to be able to better communicate with friends, relatives, their children’s teachers, their boss or colleagues, and so on.

No matter the reason, you are supporting their efforts to learn and succeed, and you should be proud.

Online English teaching is a ton of fun

Conversation classes are mostly student-driven here at Spoken English Practice, so teachers have no idea what they’ll be speaking about each time they connect to Skype to work with one of their students. It could be anything: sporting events, cooking, TOEFL Speaking topics, world politics, vacations, TED Talks, schoolwork, family and friend issues, cultural events, books, music, movies, TV, or one of a million other topics.

The role of the teacher is to act as the “talk show host” for the student: ask leading questions that help him or her expand vocabulary, practice sentence formation, use grammar and verb tenses correctly, and learn to think in English. The idea is for the student to be the one speaking for most of the time, and the teacher listens for any errors, areas of difficulty or confusion, and how the student is progressing. In any given day a teacher might have several interesting and enlightening conversations about totally diverse topics. Every day is different! How many jobs can you say that about?

If you are interest in an career in Online English teaching, here is more about our native English-speaking teachers! If you think you have the qualifications to join them in teaching English to students around the world, get in touch with us. We only hire native English speakers and generally look for people with teaching experience or related educational backgrounds. If you’re a good fit, we look forward to hearing from you!

October 6, 2016