Teaching English as a Foreign Language

This week I've decided to do something a little different and write about my experiences of teaching English as a foreign language. Although this isn't exactly a post about travel, I still feel that it's relevant to this blog, as this is one of the best careers you can choose if you're looking for a job with plenty of travel opportunities!

In this post I will talk about my own experiences of working in this sector, teaching training, online teaching, and my go-to lesson resources. Hopefully, it will serve as a useful guide to any readers who are thinking of getting into English teaching.

How I Got Started

It had always been my intention to have a job that involved travelling and languages, hence why I studied Spanish, French and German at university. However, my initial plan was actually to become an interpreter or translator, rather than a teacher. But during my time at university, I realised that being an interpreter probably wasn't the right job for me, and although I searched for jobs in translation after I graduated, I wasn't able to find any online work in this area - the only jobs on offer were in-person jobs based in the UK, which weren't, and still aren't, compatible with my particular set of life circumstances.

So I started to consider if perhaps teaching would be a good path for me to go down. I had some previous experience in the sector, having volunteered at a primary school during my Gap Year, and having worked as a teaching assistant for the British Council in two secondary schools in Austria during my Year Abroad. Although I had enjoyed both of these experiences, I still wasn't 100 percent convinced that teaching was for me, given that I am naturally quite an introverted person.

But one day shortly after I'd finished university, I was doing my usual fruitless job search, when an advert came up that intrigued me. It was offering free hotel accommodation in amazing destinations around Europe, in exchange for helping people learn English as part of an immersion programme. I thought that sounded like a pretty good deal, so I decided to go for it, though I was slightly worried it could be a scam. Luckily, it wasn't! The company is called Angloville, and though not everything about the experience was quite what I expected, I had an absolutely brilliant time completing a programme in Poland. It was hard work that involved lots and lots of conversation, but it made me realise that teaching English as a foreign language was an area I wanted to work in. So I got back home with the sense of finally having a bit more direction in life, and decided to sign up for a TEFL course...

Teacher Training

You don't have to complete a course in order to teach English as a foreign language, but it's definitely recommended, as it gives you a grounding in lesson planning, teaching the different skills involved in language learning, and teaching in general.

Some people choose to go abroad to study a TEFL course, and this was an option that interested me. However, it was simply too expensive, so I decided to do an online course instead. I chose to get my qualification through the TEFL Academy, and I'm really glad I did; as well as being reasonably priced, its course is officially recognised by both the UK and the US governments, so it stands you in good stead when looking for work later.

After you've qualified as a TEFL teacher, you can obtain some further qualifications in areas such as business English or exam preparation, if you're interested. Earlier this year I completed the IELTS Teacher Training Program, which IELTS Australia offers for free to any English teacher from any part of the world! I'd really recommend earning this certification, as many many students are interested in taking the IELTS test, so you'll get more business once you know how to prepare students for it. And it also looks good to have an additional qualification on your CV.

Where Teachers Work

The traditional path of most TEFL teachers is to spend a year or two working in a particular country and taking advantage of the travel opportunities there, before moving on to the next destination. However, we are now living in less traditional times when it comes to teaching!

The pandemic has caused a large amount of teaching to move from the classroom to the internet, which has led to a boom in the online English teaching market. Since I qualified back in late 2019, I've only ever taught online classes, working on a self-employed basis through two companies: Cambly and Verbling. The two platforms are actually pretty different, so I'm going to write a little bit about my experiences working with both of them.

Cambly

Cambly was recommended to me by one of the coordinators at Angloville, and therefore it was my first port of call when I started looking for an online teaching job. Now I've been working on the platform for nearly two years! Here are my thoughts:

- Cambly is a great place to start if you're a new teacher who's looking to gain experience teaching online. One reason for this is that it's a simpler, less formal platform compared to some of the others, and its main focus is conversation, rather than more structured teaching.

- Another advantage of Cambly is that it gives tutors three different ways of working. Students can book reservations with you, you can "go visible" and wait for students to call you, and you can sign up for "priority hours", where you must answer every call you receive during the hour for a guaranteed 15 minutes of pay.

- The priority hour system is very useful for new tutors, as it allows you to start working and earning money straight away, and it can also help you build up a base of regular students.

- However, I am personally not a fan of the priority hours and have not signed up for one in over a year. This is because I prefer to know in advance exactly when my lessons will take place, how long they will be, and which student I'll be teaching, so that I can feel prepared. During priority hours, you have no way of knowing whether the next class will be five minutes long or an hour long, which I find a bit stressful. You also have no way of knowing whether the next student will be someone who's actually serious about learning English, as not all students on Cambly are. The worst thing that happened to me was being sworn at by two teenagers, but I know that many tutors have had much much worse experiences.

- One of the most common complaints about Cambly is its rating system. It's not very transparent, and sometimes doesn't seem to make sense. My rating took a bit of a hit during my early months of working priority hours, and never really recovered, despite the fact that for several months I only worked with regular students, who I knew were giving me five stars after each lesson. A lower rating means new students are less likely to book classes with you, and you're also less likely to be offered priority hours, so it can seriously affect your earning potential.

- Speaking of earnings, the pay rate on Cambly is pretty low ($10.20 USD per teaching hour) and cannot be changed. You are also not paid for cancelled classes (even very late cancellations) and you only receive $1.10 for a no-show. For this reason, most tutors find that they need to work on at least one other website in addition to Cambly.

- Nowadays I just do a couple of lessons on Cambly each week, so it's more of a side gig than an actual job for me.

Verbling

I applied to work on Verbling in March 2020, after the pandemic started to affect the amount of work I was getting on Cambly. Now it's my main source of income, and I have quite a full schedule most days! Here are my thoughts on this platform:

- Getting started is perhaps the hardest thing. There is no priority hour system on Verbling, so the only way you can get work is if a student books a 60-minute reservation with you (though you can also choose to offer 30-minute trial lessons). I had to wait for two or three weeks until I got my first student, but the good news is that once you've worked with a couple of students, you start to get more and more reservations.

- The pay on Verbling is a definite advantage, as teachers have the ability to set their own rates. So I earn a little more for my work there than I do on Cambly. In addition, I get paid in full for no-shows and receive 50 percent pay for late cancellations.

- I feel that on Verbling more is expected of me; I have to show my skills as a real teacher, rather than just a conversation tutor. The platform has a lot of different features, which I found a little intimidating at first, as it was so much more complex than Cambly, but I quickly got used to it. Now I really appreciate the fact that I can edit documents with my students, watch videos with them, and create vocabulary cards, all within Verbling's classroom space.

- I've found that students on Verbling are very keen to learn English and are willing to work hard, so most of my lessons are a pleasure to teach.

My Favourite Resources

Here are some of the online resources I use on a regular basis in my classes:

- Engoo Daily News: This website has articles aimed at different proficiency levels, which cover a wide range of interesting topics. They're great for learning vocabulary, improving reading comprehension, and most of all, for stimulating discussion.

- Perfect English Grammar: Here you can find detailed explanations of every grammar point you can think of, as well as exercises designed to check understanding.

- British Council: Learn English: The British Council's website has a huge amount of useful content, from grammar exercises through to business English lesson plans. The kids section of the website also has some great resources, including animated stories and songs.

- Conversation Questions for the ESL/EFL Classroom: Occasionally, I get students who say they only want to practice conversation, but who aren't very responsive when I ask them questions. I've found that asking them to pick a topic we can talk about from this website is a good way of increasing their enthusiasm. It also means that I don't get stuck for questions to ask them!

- IELTS: It goes without saying that this is the best resource for information about the IELTS test and for sample questions.

June 2022 Update: I've had a message sent in from a reader, Amanda, who recommended this article about homophones. It's an interesting and very useful article, which illustrates the differences between English words that sound the same but have different meanings. Thank you for the recommendation, Amanda!

What I've Learned

Being an online English teacher has been a really educational and enriching experience. Since I started, I'm sure I must have spoken to students from at least 50 different countries, and I've learned a lot about their lives and cultures, and had some really interesting conversations. It's also very rewarding to hear my students' English improve over the weeks and months. In general, I enjoy my job a lot, and I think the last 18 months would have been so much more difficult had I not been working in this particular sector.

I also feel quite proud that I've managed to build up the student base and relatively full schedule that I have. I never really imagined myself being self-employed, and I definitely didn't imagine myself in a job that involved so much social interaction. But I've gained a lot of confidence since I first started teaching, and I've also developed skills in communication and organisation that will come in useful in whatever job(s) I have in the future.

My Future in Teaching

Within the next couple of months (if everything goes to plan), I'll finally be starting my first in-person TEFL job in Santiago de Chile, which is very exciting! I do feel a little nervous about working for a company and about working with students in person; I've got very used to being a self-employed, online teacher. But on the other hand, I feel much less nervous about it than I did last year, because I've now got more than 1000 lessons under my belt, and I know that that experience will be really useful for me. I'm looking forward to documenting my South American travel and teaching experiences very soon!

While I don't know if I will work as an English teacher forever (I'd like to try new work challenges after my year in Chile, whether that's in the education sector or somewhere else), I'm really glad that I decided to become a teacher, because it's been a great experience so far, and it's something I'll always be able to come back to in the future. And whether I'm working in a school in a foreign country or working remotely from my laptop, I know it'll give me plenty of opportunities to travel the world!

Where Teaching English Has Taken Me (and Will Take Me) so Far...

Places where I've taught (or will teach) in clockwise order starting from top left: Modrzewiowe Wzgórze hotel in Poland; my home county of Wiltshire (pic is of Castle Combe); Oxfordshire (pic is of the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford); Feldkirchen in Kärnten in Austria; Santiago de Chile (pic is of Parque Metropolitano and the Costanera Centre).