Best Online Job for Working Nomads : Teaching English Online

Unfortunately for us, non-native speakers, speaking English as a mother tongue is a huge advantage for this kind of work.

Probably not as much as teaching in loco, but based on our experience and database stats we have I would say half of the schools only accept native speakers. This leaves more than a hundred schools to apply too.

In our school’s database, we identify as far as we know the schools that have that requirement.

Nevertheless, unless is clear on the application process that only natives are accepted we recommend you apply anyway because schools are opening new branches with different requirements all the time.

The rationale for this is that students prefer native speakers, they think they will learn faster this way, besides getting the proper accent.

As much as I understand that, in my opinion, living in a world of Globish, where everyone speaks some kind of English but almost nobody speaks with the right accent or grammar, it’s actually an advantage to interact with non-native speakers.

I still remember, working as a bartender in London and feeling confident about my English, only to realize that I hardly had any British customer. There were so many different accents and slang spoken to me that I felt I was in a parallel universe.

I strongly believe that, when learning English, you should be exposed to different accents, and that is why I like the way our schools work because the students have different teachers from all over the world.

Nevertheless, the reality is that many schools hire native-speakers only so double check their requirements and don’t lie about your upbringing. Experience living in English-speaking countries is obviously an advantage.

Many schools do not require certification or will help you to get it in the first months of working with them. 

Nevertheless, you should consider obtaining some sort of certification because it is not that hard and it will highly increase your chances of obtaining a teaching job. 

There are some options to choose from, depending on your budget and time:

• TEFL – Teaching English as a Foreign Language
  • This is the simplest certification you can have and the easiest to obtain. It will give you the minimum requirements accepted by most schools. It is not a comprehensive course and, because it is not an official certification, many schools have different approaches to it.
  • When looking for options be aware of what is included in the course because there is a lot of fake or bad quality courses out there. International Tefl Academy has some guidelines to help anyone looking for this kind of certification
  • We did ours at i-to-i which is one of the best around and we highly recommend

• TESOL – Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
  • It is a more comprehensive certification, which was originally created to teach English to non-natives in English-speaking countries like Australia, US, and Canada. Nonetheless, it is accepted worldwide and it includes TEFL certification within it.

• CELTA/Trinity – Certificate in English Language Teaching Adults
  • Celta is considered the highest level you can achieve to get access to teaching abroad, any school will accept it. CELTA is a branded certification given by the University of Cambridge, and it can be obtained in many institutions around the world. Trinity Cert Tesol is the equivalent given by the Trinity College of London (the oldest language board in the world). These two are the only worldwide accredited certifications to teach English, all the others, including TEFL and TESOL, are accepted in only some schools. This explains the cost of more than US$2000 for a Celta course.

In London while practicing on our TEFL certification

There are more Teaching English certifications available, but these three are the most common and asked for by schools. We did a 100-hours TEFL diploma back in the U.K. at I-to-I (they don’t offer it anymore). They have different packages, including Business English on their high-end option (check them here). Another great alternative is The Tefl Academy. 

While most schools ask for a certain degree of experience, there are many schools out there who don’t. They will test you, normally with a demo class, and that will quickly show the degree of your experience.

I guess that this has pretty much to do with the style of classes being more focused on the conversational side, thus requiring less experience than deeper grammar teaching knowledge. 

On the other hand, if you have plenty of teaching experience, then you should look for the best-paid jobs and higher requirement schools. 

You have an advantage that is very well accepted by the bigger schools, which have more teachers to choose from.

If you already have a University degree then great, some schools ask for it, although in my case they did not request any evidence. 

I’m not saying you should lie about this, but after 4 years teaching I don’t see the reason for that requirement.

There are plenty of schools who don’t require it so I suggest you focus on those. 

This is by far the most important skill you should have to teach anything online, more important than any diploma and experience.

Unless the schools teach very basic English to students with no knowledge which requires you have some real teaching experience, then a great attitude will take you far. 

Online interaction is very different from live interaction, and especially with kids classes can become deadly boring for them.

Our capacity to keep the class alive is critical for a good performance.

Good class evaluation can bring a bonus to your salary and access to promotions by better salaries or access to special departments of the school. 

I’m not saying you need to be shouting and talking during the class, it’s actually a best practice to listen more than to talk during the class.

It’s more about creating some positive dynamic during the class and keep the students entertained. 

This also requires experience so don’t worry if you feel some shyness at the beginning of your teaching career, it will improve quickly. 

Technical requirements are obviously important when we want to teach online, and they will vary from school to school. They are important for you to choose the place where you are going to teach and also the type of computer you have to use.

If you are a Mac user like us then it can be a problem. Some schools only operate with Windows software but you can overcome this limitation with software like Parallels Desktop.

A few schools use their own software or website platform, others use free call apps like Skype or QQ Messenger to teach.

In our experience, we have always been fine with our 3-to-4-year-old computers. I would say that if you run Windows 8 or above and your computer is not too slow to open stuff then you should be alright.

The internet speed is the critical requirement for anything you want to do online, especially schools that use video and platforms with slides and whiteboards.

 Again, the requirements will vary from school to school and, at the end of the day, you will have to test to see if you have the right conditions.

You may think you have a 10Mb/s download line, but when you want to work it’s down to 1 or 2 Mb/s which will most probably not suffice for teaching.

 We have taught with 6Mb internet connection and video and it worked fine. Use Speedtest or Fast websites to check your speed.

Our speed at home in Chiang Mai

Equipment that you need:

• Windows PC
  
  • or Mac with Windows emulator for some schools with reasonable performance (Chromebooks should be ok too, but not sure)
• Webcam
  
  • if using a laptop, the camera included will probably be enough, otherwise, any cheap camera should suffice
• Headset
  • 
    • we recommend a gaming headset for two main reasons: first, you are going to spend many hours with them so you will be thankful for the comfort, second, the sound quality is normally very poor so the better the headset the better you will be able to understand the students better
  • Internet
    • we recommend at least 6mb/s of constant reliable speed

This may sound silly when talking about online teaching, but when you live in Europe or the United States and you teach students in China or Vietnam, the time difference may be a concern or an advantage, depending on your lifestyle. 

If the school’s required teaching hours are in the middle of your night or during working hours, then it would mean interfering with your sleep or your other day job. 

Always confirm if the school does not require you to live in a certain country and that the teaching hours are compatible with your life.

Another part of the location requirement is the physical place where you are teaching, which has to be quiet and neutral (if teaching with camera). Teaching in cafes of public places is definitely not an option. 

Either you can teach at home in a quiet environment, or you have to find a public space that provides you with the same conditions. 

An alternative are the phone rooms in co-working spaces, that allow you to speak with some noise reduction. We use Sharedesk website to find the best spaces. 

This is another area that varies from school to school, we have three different cases: one school wires the money directly to our Portuguese account, another uses Payoneer, and the third uses Paypal.

This is rarely negotiable, you need to adapt to each school’s payment method.

They will probably charge you transfer fees, but again it’s nothing you can discuss, it will be on the contract. 

Consider 20US$ as an average transfer fee deducted from your salary.   

We already used Paypal and Transferwise or most of our money transfers anyway, we just had to add Payoneer to the mix. All are free anyway. 

If you decide that you will teach English online as your main income, then you need to adapt our traveling style to this type of job.

On one hand, we have so much flexibility that even when we go on holidays, we can teach and work from the beach (we need to find an empty beach to do that, though!).

And it is very amusing when you travel to a destination and everyone thinks you are on holidays when, in reality, it’s just another working day.

But, on the other hand, the technical requirements for teaching online need careful planning.

As for planning, you need to think where you are staying: dorms and hostels, for example, are not a good idea, because you need some quiet space and a stable internet connection.

Instead, you will have to look for hotels or apartments where you can surely find better teaching conditions, this means a bigger traveling budget.

There are some websites,  like Hotel Wifi Test, that give you the internet speed, but nothing like Airbnb, where you can confirm directly with the host internet speed and teaching conditions.

Teaching online while traveling requires a different mindset, you need stability, and to be sure the places you choose are teaching friendly.

Canceling classes due to bad internet connection or poor environmental conditions will surely result in hefty fines and possibly contract termination.

For these reasons, our travel speed is much slower now, and, instead of visiting five cities in a week, we spend longer in a destination.

For us this was actually a blessing, we prefer slow traveling anyway, you can do it with a better purpose. 

You don’t need to find beautiful apartments like this one to teach, but it is definitively a plus. We got this one while Couchsurfing in Miami