For the past few months, I have been teaching via the platform ‘Preply‘ tutoring private students in my free-time. When I first registered, back in 2016, it took me 5 years to finally create a profile promoting myself as an English tutor. After my profile went live a few months ago, I thought it would be time to share an honest opinion of this platform.
In this post, I shall share both the advantages, the drawbacks and my overall conclusions about finding students and teaching via Preply.
It has been quite a lucrative time for many English teachers who sought to supplement their income by working with private online English educational providers based in China. I started working with a Chinese-based organisation back in 2015 and continued until last year. However, in the past few months, many Chinese-based English institutes have witnessed a huge crackdown on the English tutoring industry which has affected many.
Online English lessons must be limited to 30 minutes
Online lessons cannot be taken after 9:00 p.m. Beijing time
No online classes can be taken during weekends, holidays and school breaks
Off-campus tutoring (education not happening in the public school system) shall not include overseas education courses
There will be a ban on hiring foreign teachers who live overseas
Companies that offer private instruction will have to register as nonprofits and they will also no longer be able to advertise their programs
Looking at the following recommendations for institutes, it is hard for many organisations to succeed in the Chinese market now – it essentially stops private educational institutes . It has also been reported that Wall Street English in China has declared bankruptcy now with many staff and students being owed millions.
However, I cannot just feel that the changes are a little heavy handed. If I consider the possible implications to forcing children at a young age to study the political philosophies of Xi Jinping or reducing their exposure to Western influences such as music or films, or limiting internet access outside of the country, it is clear that the Chinese authorities are seeking to control what children should learn, what to think, and what to say.
How does this affect English teachers?
With China implementing many changes and online English institutes closing amid the clampdown, the days of earning a supplementary income tutoring children remotely is currently over. It is unclear where the market is heading for adult education as much of the changes affect young learners. Teachers have already started to feel the change with online institutes closing with immediately and freelance educators, who solely relied upon online tutoring with Chinese learners, suddenly finding themselves without an income. It is unclear how many online tutors have been affected, but it could be within the million, with tutors being conveniently based anywhere around the world with just an internet connection.
However, I like to remain optimistic. Parents and adult learners from China who wish to continue their English education will find a way to seek tutors either in-country or abroad. Having started with Preply four months ago, there have been a rising number of Chinese students seeking an English tutor on the platform. I have received many messages from Chinese English learners or parents trying to find a suitable tutor. For material writers who are involved in the Chinese market, I can see this evaporating due to the policy changes.
Finally, there will be a huge number of English teachers, both in China and abroad, seeking alternative employment. The market has now become quite saturated overnight and I would recommend teachers to specialise so that they are able to tutor particular students or prepare them for examinations, as there are still many students from Europe and elsewhere who are still looking for professional tutors.
A few months ago, I was welcomed with a contract change with iTutorGroup – with the ‘take it or leave us’ approach. Thus, I decided to no longer accept this new agreement but this left me with no alternative subsidiary freelance opportunities. However, very recently, I decided to seek a different path for freelance work via the route of Preply.
For those that are unaware of Preply, it is a platform which connects language learners with language teachers. They offer support and have an environment to help online teachers tutor potential students – whatever the language, not just English. Tutors are expected to prepare their own lessons to suit the profile and aims of the particular student, while also selling lesson packages for the student to purchase with the tutor (more information about this later on in this post).
It is very different to online educational institutes located in South East Asia, whereby these organisations offer packages of language education and tutors deliver in-house lessons. There are advantages and disadvantages to both Preply as well as those online educational institutes and i
I can’t believe it has already been a year that I was sent home and asked to teach remotely. At that time, all I had was my laptop and a pair of headphones which I plugged in. Fast forward one year, and I realise that I have actually added more to my home teaching office.
In this post, I will be sharing what other online teachers and educators can include if they wish to enhance their working environment. Below is a video where I detail more information.
I started studying Japanese a few months ago with some online classes but never really made any progress. I continued classes for a few weeks but my institute cancelled lessons and I thought I would continue studying languages at my own pace. On top of studying Japanese, I have reignited my fears of secondary education by deciding to study French too while also studying some Korean. It seems an awful lot of subjects to study but have decided to take out an hour or two in the evening but what do I want to achieve at the end of studying three languages?
For the past few years, I have been using Story Dice with my adolescent and adult learners. However, due to the emergency delivery of lessons being conducted remotely, I have had to find new ways of offering similar lessons and activities and was thrilled to learn about Dave Birss offering online Story Dice.
I had written a blog post previously about the use of Story Cubes within physical classrooms with ten lesson ideas. I would recommend readers to view the list of ten teaching ideas to use in conjunction with Dave Birss’s online story dice. Some of the lesson ideas include reviewing grammar forms, presenting topics/stories, rolling stories, etc.
While you are getting remote students to work in small groups within their breakout rooms, you could get them to capture a screenshot of their dice, upload this to the document that they are using to brainstorm/share ideas of their story. Tasks could be extended over a period of time in the form of a class project and then groups of learners could share their final projects together within Padlet or on the class Virtual Learning Network (VLE).
Why not share your lesson ideas using online replacements with the Story Cubes in the comments below?
When I first started teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP), I was unfamiliar with any resources, websites or activities. My first year of teaching EAP involved being supported and shadowed by others. After a period of time, I found myself becoming more and more comfortable teaching and planning EAP tasks and lessons. In this post/video, I will share a variety of websites which could aid potential or current EAP teachers access resources and information which will help them prepare and plan lessons for their students.
When considering potential material or planning your EAP lessons, it is important to consider the role of the EAP teacher. It took a while for me to learn that the role of the EAP teacher is essentially there as a facilitator: to guide students towards best or expected academic practice (depending upon their department or specialism), develop the necessary study skills in preparation for their courses (especially during pre-sessional courses), or to provide students with the skills to tackle reading for their courses. The recommended websites below are those that I have accessed and suggested students to access for self-study, and I hope this helps you.
I have been very fortunate to be involved in an area of English teaching for the last few years which I find incredibly fascinating and extremely rewarding, especially when you see the progress that undergraduate and post-graduate international students make within a period of time. In this post and video, I share my experiences of how I got involved in the teaching of English for Academic Purposes (also known as EAP).
Before I share how I discovered this element of academic English and EAP, I really need to focus on what started my journey within the field of English language teaching. I first discovered the English teaching profession by chance when I moved to South Korea to teach English to young learners at a small private after-school institute. It was this that ignited my passion within English teaching and motivated me enough to undertake an initial teacher training certificate – the CELTA – after a year of teaching to these wonderful young learners.
I have been teaching remotely for around a year now since the most educational language institutes and higher educational providers responded to COVID-19 by getting everyone to work from home. Who knew we would be still be teaching remotely a year later. In the video below, I share what a usual quiet day of teaching is like.
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I must say as a proviso that I currently have a very quiet teaching schedule and I am fortunate to have time to focus on other things. Perhaps I could share an update when things are a little busier once I am teaching remotely full-time. Anyhow, I do hope you like the video and please feel free to share your current ‘day in the life’ experience in the comments.
The teaching of pronunciation can be a rather difficult skill to develop, as it was for me, for many newly certified English language teachers. However, the benefit of developing the confidence to teach pronunciation can aid your students in becoming more intelligible and confident when speaking.
