Guest article

Here's a guest post from one of my dearest internet buddies, Mich. Her site, "Let's go virtual" is a very interesting and informative one. Don't forget to take a peep. Click here.

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Online Teaching: Another way to Earn Online

The internet is indeed an ocean of unlimited possibilities.  Included in the list is the ability to earn.  There are plenty of ways to earn online and one of them is to teach the English language to ESL (English as a Second Language) learners.






The past decade was a witness to the surge of South Korean and Japanese nationals to the Philippines and their main purpose was to study English.  They came here to learn the language in a traditional classroom set-up with the Filipinos as their English teachers; usually one-on-one.  In this field, we call it man-to-man.  I don’t know why the method is called man-to-man; I’d rather call it one-on-one.  Anyway, it was in 2001 when I started to teach man-to-man to Korean students at Doosol Language School.  I stayed there for a few years but it was in 2008 when I discovered a much better and convenient way to teach ESL; to teach it ONLINE right at the convenience of my home and at my most convenient time.  Pardon my redundancy, but it really is very CONVENIENT.





I only discovered it in 2008; little did I know that it has been happening for quite a while already.  Here are the things that you’ll need to get you started:


Desktop or laptop with good specs (good enough to carry a voice and video call)
Good Headset (preferably with noise canceling feature)
Good webcam (Some students require you to be on cam, especially the children.  Some don’t care whether you’re on cam or not.)
Reliable internet connection (at least 1mbps and should be wired; NO wifi)
Quiet working area (students hate noisy background)
Skype account

Skype is a widely used medium of communication in teaching online.  Some online schools may use their own platform or video conference application during the class proper.  In my case, we use Homemeeting/JoinNet as our virtual classroom.  Despite using another application, we still use Skype to communicate with the management of the online school.

When doing private classes, Skype to Skype is the way.  As a home-based teacher, I am still considered a freelancer despite working for a particular online school.  Thus, I can still accept private students outside my shift.

Homemeeting/JoinNet(  http://homemeeting.com/en_US/index.html  )   is not a free application, so for my Skype to Skype classes, I use Twiddla http://www.twiddla.com/home.aspx  for my whiteboard and joint web browsing needs.  It has premium accounts for more features but the free account is good enough for me.


E-books
For Skype to Skype classes, the scanned books are sent to the student in advance so they have a copy during the class.

For classes done using another video conference application, just upload the pages of the books on the whiteboard where you can annotate and do joint web browsing.


Paypal account
Just like in most online transactions, PayPal (https://www.paypal.com/ph ) is also widely used as the online payment system in online teaching.  Xoom  ( https://www.xoom.com/sendmoneynow/home?receiveCountryCode= )  is also an option, but the transaction fee is too high, unless you have a bank account in the USA.

Fee
The average fee of a Filipino ESL teacher is $5.00 per hour.  Some teachers charge higher, some charge lower.  It really depends on the teacher.  It also depends on the nationality of the students.  The above mentioned rate is mostly for Asian students like South Koreans, Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese.  The students from Russia, Europe and South America pay higher.
This is just an overview of the ESL online teaching world.  Another reason why I am proud to be a Filipino, English is not our mother-tongue but people from other countries come to us to learn it.  The main reason, of course, is because we charge much lower than the native English speakers, but still, the fact remains that we CAN teach English to other nationals.

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You might also like to check updates in my other website: http://wwwcreatingwealthphilippines.blogspot.com