If you have experience as an English language
teacher or tutor, you can make extra income teaching English online to
Asians, South Americans and other people around the world. It has, in
fact, suddenly become an incredible growth industry.
Most
of the teachers providing this service work part time from home, and
thanks to broadband Internet video-conferencing it doesn't matter if
that home is in Cody, Wyo., or Miami. Talk about globalization!
In
the early days of teaching English online, freelancers had to hustle to
find their own clients. Today, there are several online services that
act as liaisons between learners and teachers.
Online
language services all work a little differently. One might be a better
fit for you than another, depending on how entrepreneurial you are.
Once you're accepted at Verbalplanet.com,
for instance, you hang your shingle up in the marketplace and hope that
students like your profile and experience. New teachers often offer
free trial lessons to attract students and get the positive-feedback
ball rolling.
Verbalplanet.com supplies
easy-to-use appointment and invoicing software. You set your own rate
(most tutors charge around $30 per session), and get paid by the
students through PayPal.
Verbalplanet.com is a partner of Harper Collins,
which publishes MP3 audio language courses, foreign language
dictionaries, and other educational materials. The service takes no cut
from the teachers.
In a very different business model, teachers get a flat $12.50 an hour at the cleverly named English as a Second Income. The tradeoff? You bypass the marketing work. The service brings corporate students directly to you.
That
service also provides a system for organizing teaching sessions and
using prepared guides. You can teach as many or as few hours as you
want.
Based in tiny Ten Sleep, Wyo., Eleutian
is a rapidly growing company that contracts not only with foreign
corporations, but also with school systems and government organizations.
Teachers
must be experienced and certified, and go through specific training.
They earn anywhere from $11 to $13 per hour for one-on-one tutoring or
virtual classroom teaching.
So how can you tell these services are legitimate? First, because I check them out before telling you about them, of course.
Another
clue is they aren't asking for you to pay any money upfront to get
started. Whenever there's an upfront fee involved in a make-money-online
venture, your scam alert sirens should start blaring.
In
this case, other than your teaching skills and experience, all you need
is a good headset, a fast Internet connection, and accounts with PayPal
and Skype, or a similar free video-conferencing service.
