1: What do you mean by ‘teaching live online’?
In the last few years, I’ve seen increasing numbers of teachers interested in learning how to teach English online via videoconferencing tools like Skype. You teach your student(s) online in real time, or in other words, ‘live’. Skype is not the only tool you could use. There are other free videoconferencing platforms like appear.in or Google Hangouts, and there are also pay-for platforms like Zoom, Blackboard Collaborate or Adobe Connect. To get an idea of the range of platforms currently available, take a look at the five-minute guide to videoconferencing software at https://youtu.be/-1t0Fi2vZ38.
2: Where can I teach live online?
Companies have been recruiting teachers to teach English live online for years. More established companies include Myngle, founded a decade ago. More recently-established onl ine language outfits include Perfectly Spoken, Language in Motion and Live Lingua. Several of these online companies offer a range of languages for students. However, in some cases the pay for live online teachers can be low, and some companies’ hiring practices are unfairly biased towards so-called ‘native speakers’. What’s more, online language companies can come and go. LiveMocha, for example, established in 2007 and with up to 12 million registered members from 136 countries at its peak, folded in 2016. For these reasons, increasing numbers of English teachers are interested in going solo, offering private classes online to individuals or to groups of language students.
3: Why would I want to teach live online?
The advantages are obvious. You can work from home, you can set your own working hours and hourly rate of pay, and you can find your own clients/students to teach English to. Videoconferencing software nowadays is affordable – or even free, in the case of tools like Skype. Broadband internet access is increasingly ubiquitous, which means that you can usually use videoconferencing – which requires a robust internet connection – with the majority of your potential online students. For those students who may have less reliable connections, you can use audio rather than video, because audio requires less bandwidth. It sounds easy. But as many language teachers who set out to teach live online discover, there are challenges.
4: What’s the downside?
Becoming confident with using videoconferencing technology, and knowing how to use it effectively to support your students’ learning, takes time and practice. Designing effective lessons for individual students or small groups online also takes time and practice. As any language teacher knows, having students interact with each other and use the language in meaningful ways is an essential part of language learning. Online, this can be done via videoconferencing technology, and many teachers need to resist the urge to simply lecture their students when they first start teaching languages online. Another major challenge is how to market yourself as an online teacher, and how to attract paying customers. Building your own professional-looking website and knowing where and how to recruit language students are important early steps for the aspiring solo online language teacher.
5: So where should I start if I want to teach live online?
Teaching online in real time via a videoconferencing tool is simply not the same as teaching face-to-face. Your lessons need to be carefully planned, and you need to know how to use the range of tools that your chosen videoconferencing platform provides in ways that actually help your students learn. There are several ways you can get started. You can try out teaching via videoconferencing with a few dummy students (ie friends or family), and learn via trial and error. You can read up on the topic, to develop your background knowledge about videoconferencing platforms and lesson design. You can get some online training which involves hands-on practice with real videoconferencing platforms, and guidance in how to plan effective lessons. (Feel free to email me for reading and/or training recommendations.) Either way, it’s helpful to get some practice, training and/or support before you set out to build your own online English language teaching empire!
Nicky Hockly has been involved in EFL teaching and teacher training since 1987. She is Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E, an online teacher training and development consultancy. She is the prize-winning author of several books about language teaching and technology, most recently Focus on Learning Technologies (OUP) and ETpedia Technology (Pavilion). Her company, The Consultants-E, offers the online training course ‘Teaching Live Online’ for English language teachers (see https://goo.gl/HDffQ3).
