Experiences of an English Language Teacher

Tag: YouTube (Page 1 of 3)

My Experience of Teaching on Preply for 2 Years

It has been two years since I started tutoring students from around the world on Preply, and I guess it all stemmed from a lack of teaching opportunities during the midst of a pandemic. Despite registering with Preply back in July 2016, it took almost 5 years to finally complete the registration and making my profile live. Unfortunately, it was perhaps the least suitable moment to find an alternative means of earnings during the pandemic, but I was keen to make it work.

Setting Up My Profile

During the initial stages of setting up a Preply Profile, I was required to send documents which would confirm my identification and proof of address. I suppose organisations of any worth are expected to ensure the proper checks were in place and within half an hour, Preply had received a scan of my passport and a proof of address. All this was done via a smartphone application and the whole process was rather seamless.

Once my registration was accepted, I was able to make a start on setting up my profile. Creating an eye-catching and engaging profile takes time, and is something I spent a few days on. I wanted to make my profile as professional as possible, and to do so requires a bit of time and research.

Fortunately, as the Preply platform is open for all, you are able to view other profiles and see how more successful tutors are marketing themselves online. I wrote down some initial ideas and starting to formulate them into something a little more suitable. I guess one has to consider the learners that you one is attempting to market and teach, while also writing something that is graded for that potential client.

The other aspect that I noticed during my research was that tutors were marketing their profile with a headline such as “Professional IELTS Tutor” or “Qualified English Language Teacher”. Looking at the written introduction certainly helped create an eye-catchy headline for potential students.

Creating an Introduction Video

Once, I had created an engaging and click-able (if that is a word) profile for Preply, I had to spend a bit of time crafting an introduction video. I decided to watch a few introduction videos from fellow Preply Tutors, and learned many ways not create such a video.

Here are a few recommendations that I suggest for those that are willing to create an introduction video, whether it is for Preply or on alternative platforms. I hope it helps.

  • Record your introduction video in landscape rather than portrait mode, with the smartphone or camera placed at either eye-level or slightly higher – no one wants to look up your nostrils!
  • Record your introduction video with light facing behind the camera rather than light facing in-front of the camera. It would cause the exposure to over compensate and make things unviewable for potential students.
  • Keep your introduction short and to the point. No one wants to hear your ramblings. Also, grade your language! You are speaking to potential students.
  • Organise your introduction into threes: 1. About yourself; 2. What you offer; and a 3. Call to action.
  • Spend some time recording or re-recording your introduction video until it is the way you want it.
An example of my introduction video for Preply.

There are various other recommendations on Preply with recording an introduction video. However, I have included my introduction video above, where I hope to offer some inspiration and attempt to incorporate recommendations above.

Initial Student Bookings

A few weeks after setting up my profile, I had my first message and booking from a potential student. I was filled with slight disbelief as I held little to no hope of getting any students. However, I was quite unsure what to do during the trial lesson, so I decided to attend a free webinar session via Preply, which are aimed to help tutors out when first starting on the platform. In fact, there are lots of webinars and recordings to help new or seasoned Preply Tutors.

The support webinar, which I attended, gave me the confidence to understand how to deal potential new students and possibly sell a course. So, I created a PowerPoint to structure first lessons and provide a sense of professionalism. Essentially, I attempted to achieve the following with initial/trial lessons:

  • Develop rapport with learners, so I better understand the learners and they are able to get to know me
  • Determine student aims with their English learning
  • Any potential challenges that students encountered with their English
  • Introduce students to my methodology when teaching
  • Expected equipment students need to attend lessons
  • Demonstrate an example lesson with a variety of tasks
  • Provide feedback for any student utterances and scaffold language
  • Offer an opportunity for potential students to ask questions

I spent a few hours crafting a PowerPoint and then taught my first trial lesson. The initial feedback that I had received from the student was along the lines of, “I have never received such a professional first lesson on Preply!”. And with that, I had decided that I had a template for any potential trial lesson and have used this template for all trial lessons. In fact, I have recorded examples of trial lessons and shared on YouTube which are available to view below.

Here is an example of a Preply trial lesson with an Intermediate level student of English
Here is an example of a Preply trial lesson with an Advanced level student of English

If you would like to look a thorough procedure of a possible trial lesson, then I would suggest that you consider looking at Joanna’s post on the experiences of her very first trial lesson.

Preply Statistics

A post such as this would not be considered suitable without sharing key information from the platform such as total number of lessons taught, number of students, overall earnings, and other relevant statistics.

At the time of writing this, I have a 0.33% conversion to trial rate with potential students. I get this figure by how many times a student has booked a trial lesson with me (73 times) divided by how many times a potential student has viewed my profile (a total of 21,875).

Preply also automatically calculates (somehow), your profile and I have amended my profile from time-to-time, but I always revert back to my original profile image as this seems to have some impact to the automatic assessment of my Profile Score, which currently stands at 100%.

Obviously, at the time of this post, my profile position is 1075 with an availability of 35 hours per week. I like to organise my availability according to my own personal circumstances, so this is reviewed every few months.

Now looking at the statistics related to current or new students on the platform, I have a conversion rate of 60.27% with an average number of lessons of 5.9 hours. Of course I have taught a number of different students a range of lessons with some having at least 50 hours of classes, while some students book a few hours and move on.

Currently, I have 84 active students that book lessons with me. Typically, students book between one or two lessons per week, with lessons lasting usually sixty minutes. My overall trial lessons rating on Preply is 4.9, with no trial lessons missed. There is a note that I have cancelled 2 trial lessons, which was something that I don’t typically do or recommend.

Unfortunately, when I booked a Christmas holiday, there is a function on Preply where you can cancel all scheduled lessons during a set period to allow for holidays and this then blocks out your availability. When completing this process, I completely forgot that I had two trial lessons booked for the Christmas period so these got cancelled. I would recommend that tutors reschedule trial or normal lessons rather than cancel them altogether, and explain to students the reason.

In terms of overall achievements with Preply, I have earned a total of $16,741 during the past two years with a total number of 1,030 tutoring hours. If you divide the earnings by the tutoring hours, there is an average of $16.26 per hour. To explain the discrepancy between my tutoring rate and the rather low hourly for the past two years: firstly trial lessons are unpaid with 100% commission to Preply which are included in the total tutoring hours and secondly there is a commission to Preply for all hours taught on the platform which depends on the number of lessons taught.

The average rating for my profile is 5.0 with a total 31 reviews, with a total zero absences (again I prefer to reschedule all lessons rather than cancel or miss classes). I have taught a total of 164 students for the past two years with an average of 6.3 hours.

With the graph above, you can start to see an overall pattern in terms of earnings with my winter months being my most lucrative. However, this has continued this year earnings being above $1,400 per month since March to date. This is obviously all before tax and there is a conversion to UK Sterling which needs to be taken into account.

During my initial months on the platform, I earned $26.80 in April 2021, followed by $393.20 in May 2021. Earnings is not guaranteed on Preply but the more you dedicate to the platform, the lucrative it can be, with many students switching to online courses since the pandemic.

Memorable Students with Preply

Having taught a broad number of students over the past two years, I hope to have gained an insight into the teaching with the Preply platform. I have had a wonderful opportunity to tutor many students over the past two years. Some students that come to mind include helping a Polish young adult learner with their IELTS preparation and she had lessons with me for around a year and a half. She was fluent in Spanish, French, had just started learning German and had decided to become more proficient in English.

The other student that I remember was a Chinese adult learner who wanted to study at a UK institute, so she needed to pass the IELTS at Band 6.5 overall with no less than 6.5 in Writing. She had taken the IELTS in the past but found it difficult to achieve the much needed 6.5 in perhaps all aspects of the examination. After much preparation, she took the IELTS, gained the required band, and was accepted to study at post-graduate level with the University of Exeter.

A third and final memorable student that I am currently teaching include a pair of young learner twins from France. They currently study Chinese and English but obviously speak French as their first language. I decided at the beginning of 2023 to start teaching young learners and these were the very first children that booked lessons with me. I have now taught quite a few lessons with them, focusing on stories, CLIL or other interesting topics. They are very patient and keen to share what they have done during the week with me. Perhaps, they are the easiest students to teach as they carry the lesson themselves and I correct them or give them some engaging games to do with me. Their mother is very keen to communicate with me and is happy to share any updates about what they do or where they visit together. It is so nice to chat with them and I am so pleased to have decided to teach young learners this year.

The Future with Preply?

I shall not be reviewing this platform as extensively as I have done before – there is actually a video that I created and shared previously and is available to watch below – but where do I see myself with Preply in the coming years? To be honest, I love the flexibility of scheduling the hours that can be arranged other commitments, whether it is full-time work or life getting in the way. And because of this, I shall be continuing with to teach with the Preply platform.

This was a review of Preply after one month of teaching! I hope this gives you some insight into the platform.

There is quite a big update which I shall be sharing in the coming months, so Preply will certainly help when it comes to such a large change in my life. I have also been able to meet so many students from around the world such as Thailand, Peru, Germany, Switzerland, France or China, and it is such a pleasure to make so many connections or to be recommended to other potential students.

It is also a great opportunity to supplement and diversify your income, particularly with the cost of living crisis now affecting so many of us. I have yet to meet any of my students or fellow tutors face-to-face but I am looking forward to seeing, should they wish to meet up and have a coffee together.

So would I recommend this to other professionals? Of course! There are plenty of opportunities to carve out a specialist niche, and I am now sharing an opportunity for fellow online tutors who wish to develop the necessary skills to deliver quality lessons and create an engaging profile for potential students.

If you would like to join our ELT Experiences Online Community via YouTube, then all you have to do is click here for more information.

The following ELT Experiences Community Membership will offer those to join a meeting with me every two weeks to chat about online teaching and to answer the questions that you have when it comes to teaching online or face-to-face.

Anyhow, had I not decided to work with this platform, I wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to share get involved with Teacher Training or to create a variety of videos – paid of course – for fellow Preply Tutors. So the whole platform has great potential to promote and develop your online tutoring business.

Book Review: “101 EFL Activities for Teaching University Students” by Hall Houston

It was a surprise to receive Hall’s most recent publication to review, “101 EFL Activities for Teaching University Students”, during the summer, and I was keen to share my thoughts and ideas. However, it has taken a while to write out and create a video, but I appreciate Hall Houston’s patience in the meantime. Nevertheless, I hope I do this review justice.

Watch my immediate reaction to this new book by Hall Houston

Overall Impressions

When I first opened this book on my computer, I was surprised how many different activities were included within the publication. Of course there are 101 activities, but it is sometimes hard to visualise the number of tasks within the contents page. The contents page covers three pages in length and the book is split into three key components: ‘Getting Off to a Good Start’, ‘Maintaining Motivation and Interest’, and ‘Ending the Semester Gracefully’.

The intention is obvious with the book offering ideas for the beginning, middle, or end of the course or term. There are a number of activities which are within each of these three components:

  • Getting Off to a Good Start: 38 activities
  • Maintaining Motivation and Interest: 38 activities
  • Ending the Semester Gracefully: 25 activities

During the video review, as shared above, I looked a few select activities, which you can watch to get an idea of the variety of tasks, and I was pleased that the activities followed a familiar and logical structure. Each activity was accompanied with the title of the activity, a brief introduction, the time it would take to complete the task, any skills that would be focused during the activity, any preparation required, as well as the procedure.

The following sample page above, provides an illustration of the format and style of the publication.

There are a number of activities which also have possible downloadable and photocopiable material. During the video review, I was surprised as it is the first time that I have seen a direct link between material and a self-published eBook. I suppose in this day and age, we tend to take it for granted but for an author to take the time and make the effort to offer possible free material is welcomed.

Downloadable and photocopiable material are offered to readers on the eBook with this publication.

For example, on the page above, after activity 40, there is a photocopiable handout offered to readers with the eBook. Clicking on this download button, readers are guided towards Hall Houston’s website where they can download and print the activity out for use in class.

As well as all the suggested lesson activities and material offered within this book, there is an introduction guiding the reader into each of the three key parts of the book and towards the end of these parts include teacher development tips or reflections on improving possible areas of teaching. The author has tried to offer much value into this publication and it is recognised.

At the end of the book, readers are provided with a variety of links for further reading, videos to consider watching or courses to extend their awareness. Much is packed into this publication.

Final Thoughts

On inspection, the book is a valuable resource for English teachers – regardless their teaching context – as it offers a variety of engaging tasks which could be incorporated immediately to any lesson. If you are keen to add something different to your lessons or to supplement an activity, then this book will offer some practical tips to enhance the delivery of your teaching.

The links embedded within the eBook offer additional downloadable material which can be printed and used in lessons, but I assume the physical book (which I was unable to review) would not be able to link these online resources. Nevertheless, the eBook would be invaluable and offers a little more – if my aforementioned assumption is correct.

If you enjoy this review and would like to get this book, you could either get the physical or digital version – I would recommend the digital version as all the links appear to work quite well and it is more affordable than the physical version.

In a word, this book is wonderful with much work and effort going towards the entire self-publication. Get your digital Kindle version here, “101 EFL Activities for Teaching University Students”.

Final score: 10 / 10

How To Teach ‘Too’ and ‘Enough’

In this brief post / video, I share how I go about teaching the difference between ‘too’ and ‘enough’ with pre-intermediate or intermediate learners of English. These are some tips and feel free to either adapt or ignore this as what may work for me might not work for you.

1. Introduce Adjectives

The first step is to introduce common adjectives to learners with the use of flashcards. Print off some flashcards which represent common adjectives such as cold, hot, expensive, etc. and then elicit from students the language. While language is being elicited, board it up and check pronunciation by nominating students.

2. Students Predict Situations

Get students to think of particular situations with the selected adjectives, for example with the image of someone tired they could have worked for twelve hours. Give an example to all students with one flashcard and ask students to work together in pairs or small groups, noting down possible situations. Once students have written down some ideas, nominate groups to share their ideas, writing down them on the whiteboard.

3. Creative Dialogue

The next step is to get students to create a dialogue based on their predicted situations. Provide an example for all students to get them started: referring to the picture related tiredness:

  • Person A: Could you write the report for me by tomorrow morning?
  • Person B: Sorry, I am really tired!

Get students to work together in small groups or pairs, thinking of potential dialogue using the adjectives and scenarios as an idea. Give learners some time and then monitor them, helping where necessary. Check whether any learners have used the target language with ‘too’ or ‘enough’ so that you can nominate them for later. After ten minutes or so, ask students to read out their dialogue in pairs or small groups and share them with the rest of the class.

Make a note of any particular language such as the example dialogue above or the target language and write this up on the whiteboard for all students. If none of the students use the target language, you will have to present it to the class. For example, write the situation above and write the start of the sentence ‘I am too tired to … as I didn’t get enough sleep’ and get students to complete the sentence in small groups.

4. Using Target Language

Ask students to use the language ‘too’ and ‘enough’ with the images and situations, working together in small groups or pairs. After a short period, nominate groups to provide their example sentences using ‘too’ and ‘enough’. You could highlight the grammatical structure with the target language so students are aware of how to construct it.

The next step is for students to consolidate understanding and to review with the use of a gapfill exercise. Get students to complete this individually, and monitor or assist learners where necessary. Once students have completed this, get learners to compare answers in small groups or pairs. Here is an online gapfill activity which you could get students to complete.

5. Situational Complaints

The final task for students to undertake is for them to complain about certain situations using the target language. Hand out or board up some situations for students to share their complaints with others. Monitor learners and then provide feedback where necessary. I have included some topics in the Word document below which could be used with students.


I hope you found this grammar teaching post / video useful and that it gave you some ideas for teaching the language point, ‘too’ and ‘enough’. If you would like a future grammar teaching series to be included, kindly let me know in the comments.

Happy Teaching!

Personal Update and Thanks for 10,000 Subscribers

Hello. This is a short blog post to provide an update with regards to my what has been happening recently and to thank all those that have subscribed to my YouTube Channel.

Over the past month, I have been rather quiet and took a short break from producing video content for my YouTube Channel – there has been quite a bit on my mind and I have had to process much. I shall share this in the future but for now I am happier and more content. One reason for this was being asked to teach a short week course for a group of Spanish teenagers for a local language school – you can read more about it in this blog post. This really got me out the house and put me back where I enjoy – the classroom!

Anyhow, there is a video below where I provide a bit of an update. I am planning to release more content on YouTube in the coming weeks and it would be wonderful if you could subscribe (if you haven’t already).

I told you this was a short blog post! Anyhow, that is it for me today and I hope you have a good rest of the week. Stay safe and happy teaching all!

Teaching About British Food: Full Lesson Plan

Hello all and welcome to a brief post featuring a full lesson with materials and lesson structure which you could use for your class. This lesson is geared towards Intermediate to Advanced learners and should last 60 minutes.

1. Lesson Introduction

Start the lesson by asking students there favourite food in the home country, as well as what food they like from the UK. Write up some of the language on the whiteboard and scaffold vocabulary where necessary. Choose one food that is from the student’s country and ask them to explain it in English, write up language and correct where necessary.

Tell students that they are going to learn a little more about British food and the type of food that is either cooked at home or ordered at a British pub. See what English food they know and tell them that there is more to food than just fish and chips.

2. Picture Matching

Explain to students that the first task is to match the name of the food to the corresponding picture. Tell them not to use smartphones or tablets to search for the food online but to guess, and not to worry about mistakes. Hand out the first task to students, explain that they should complete this alone, and monitor where necessary.

Once students have finished matching, ask them to compare their answers with each other for a few minutes. Finally, elicit potential answers from students, writing up their ideas on the whiteboard, and correct where necessary.

3. Description to Name Matching

Tell students that they are now to match the description of food, and that they should try to match the name and picture to this. Use the first description as an example and read it out to students, get students to predict the name of the food. Once you receive the correct name, tell them that they must write the name in the right-hand column on the worksheet.

Tell students not to translate any language at this point but to try to understand it from context. Hand out the worksheet and monitor learners assisting where necessary. Once students have finished, mix the learners up in class and get them to compare each other’s answers, before eliciting and sharing the correct answers with each other.

4. Language Review

The next step is for students to review some of the language from the reading. Tell learners to highlight or underline any language that they struggled with but to not check a dictionary or translation tool yet. Once students have highlighted language from the reading, get them to check with each other first to see if their peers know the language and vice versa.

The next step is to highlight ‘-ed’ endings with some of the language and to review pronunciation (i.e. ‘mixed‘ /t/ ‘pickled‘ /d/ ‘roasted‘ /id/). Create a table on the whiteboard and get students to highlight words with ‘ed’ endings and to decide what their pronunciation is; /t/, /d/, or /id/. Review as a class and assist where necessary, drill and correct.

Finally, handout Exercise 3 to the class with the key language, with students needing to decide what the word form is (noun, verb, adjective, etc.). You can hand a monolingual English dictionary out to students and ask them to look for definitions or ask them to head over to Google and ask them to type ‘Define [word]’. Google will provide a brief explanation of the word as well as an example sentence.

Once students have found a definition, tell students to predict the possible translation in their L1 before they check the translation. This in itself develops learner confidence and usage in their L2. The more times learners are correct in predicting possible translations, the more confident they will become.

5. Review Vocabulary

You could review vocabulary by asking students to get into two groups in single files and playing a ‘broken telephones’ style game where learners whisper a word from above to the person in front and the student at the front of the class has to write the chosen word. An alternative to reviewing the vocabulary with this game is by playing ‘hangman’ or ‘pictionary’.


Lesson Material

The material for this lesson is available to download below. It is available in Word format and can be adapted to suit your teaching context.

If you do find this lesson useful or have feedback, please let me know in the comments. It would be great to know what you thought of it.

Developing Materials for Online Lessons

Welcome to another daily blog post where I look at another aspect of online lessons, and today I am look at develop materials for remote purposes. In this post, I’ll be sharing personal thoughts that I have regarding the creation of materials more suitable for online lessons.

One of the biggest challenges faced by tutors moving from a physical classroom to a remote environment, or possibly newly certified English language teachers, is the development of materials for potential online lessons. Essentially, teaching material should be engaging, memorable, and accessible, which helps supplement the overall aims and strategies of the lesson.

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Weekly Livestream: Teacher Talking Time

Episodes are currently on Mondays at 1pm (UK time)

I have decided to start a weekly livestream which is currently on Mondays at 1pm (UK time) to answer questions that others may have about teaching online, tips for teaching English or address any thoughts or opinions that you may have. Today marked the second week (hence Episode 2) and decided to do something that may resonate with other teachers.

The first week, I had some technical issues which meant I started at a later time – 30 minutes to be precise. I never realised that streaming via my MacBook would be so complicated. I was relying upon using my Sony ZV-1 as a webcam but YouTube Studio had issues recognising this, so I had to end up using OBS to stream. To eventually get everything working took 30 minutes to resolve.

Teacher Talking Time: Episode 1

This week, I started Episode 2 of Teacher Talking Time but noticed something quite odd after the livestream. I realised that the scheduled stream did not connect with OBS – I made a mistake and learned afterwards what I must do. However in Episode 2, I was able to share my screen and used this function quite regularly during the livestream. I will use this function in next week’s episode. It was great to answer questions from viewers and share a corresponding website to answer their queries. I also created a countdown timer on one screen but be sure not to watch the timer and skip the first 5 minutes of the video below.

Teacher Talking Time: Episode 2 (skip the first 5 minutes)

Hopefully from Episode 3, I will be able to use the correct scheduled link for the livestream rather than creating a new link. It would also be wonderful to get another teacher to join the livestream in the future but I will have to see how best to stream a Zoom call or other tool. If there are any other English teachers who have experience of streaming and inviting a guest to virtually join this, then it would be great to hear your advice. Another area that I would like to develop is to share particular questions on the screen asked by those in the stream. I would need to improve my knowledge of OBS and create more scenes in the future.

As ever a huge thanks to all who have contributed past and current livestreams and if any readers have questions about streaming and using OBS, then please let me know.

Three Games for your Online Lessons

One of the most challenging aspects of teaching online is maintaining learner engagement and interest. Within a physical classroom, teachers achieve this by incorporating a variety of games and activities throughout the lesson. However, this is much harder in a remote environment. In this post, I will be sharing three games that you could use with your online lessons immediately, which require little to no preparation, to boost student engagement and interest.

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Game 1: Pictionary

One popular game with learners of any age is Pictionary. If you are unfamiliar with this activity, it involves sharing a word to a student that has been taught in a previous lesson or has just been taught. The student then has to draw a picture on the physical whiteboard – no words or numbers can be used – and other students have to guess the word that has been drawn. It encourages students to be creative and spontaneous. To add a bit of a competitive edge to the game, you could place students into two groups, add a time limit, and the first group to guess the correct word gains a point. The group with the most amount of points wins the game. But how can this be achieved in an online environment?

With remote classes, teachers could either allow students to use the online whiteboard (if using Zoom) or a shared whiteboard such as Web Whiteboard. Send an individual student a private message with the word that they must draw, start a countdown time (if you wish), and then get the student to share their screen with their whiteboard and other students must use the Chat function in Zoom to send their nominated word. The first student to write the correct word gains a point. An alternative to this is getting students to use a pen and paper to draw and share on their webcam.

Game 2: Odd One Out

This task requires a little more preparation prior to lessons but nothing too different to the classroom activity. You could either prepare a Word document as a worksheet with a range of words or use a PowerPoint with each slide sharing these words (about four to five on each row or slide). An alternative is to use images instead of words. Anyhow, students must work together in small groups to decide on the odd word or image out of all others. Once learners have completed the activity (perhaps with a time limit), then they must describe why certain words or images are the odd one out. Each acceptable description by a group is awarded a point and the group with the most amount of points are the winners.

This activity is a wonderful opportunity for learners to review verbs, lexical sets (fruit, jobs, etc.) or pronunciation patterns. It is best to have this activity at the end of the lesson – the last 20 minutes of an online lesson – while students start to switch off. It will maintain interest and motivation with the class particularly at the end of the lesson, and ensure that learners end their online lesson with a positive.

Game 3: Sentence Maker

The final game that online teachers could incorporate with their online lessons is a familiar for those teachers who wish to review a range of vocabulary from previous lessons. This activity requires just a little preparation from the teacher but if you have been teaching from a coursebook, preparation would be minimal. Choose a range of vocabulary (around fifteen to twenty words) to use and they must have a range of functions (i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.). Try to create a worksheet which could be shared with learners, so that they can write down their group sentences.

Tell students that they will be placed into groups of three or fours for five minutes and they must use the vocabulary to create a variety of grammatically correct sentences – possibly demonstrate to learners beforehand so that they know what is expected. Share the worksheet with all learners, place them into breakout rooms, and then wait for all to return. Students share their worksheet with the teacher via the Chat and the teachers provides a point for each sentence which is grammatically correct. You could give an extra point to the sentence which contains the grammar form that was taught during the past few lessons. For example, if you had taught the second conditional and a group created a suitable sentence with the grammar form, then a point could be awarded for the sentence and another for the grammar form included – a total of two points. The group with the most points are the winners.


Those are three possible games that you could incorporate with your future online lessons which require minimal preparation. What games have you used in your online lessons? Have you adapted a tried and tested physical game for the online environment? How did it go? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

An Honest Review of Teaching via Preply

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.

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Online English Teaching in China is Over

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.

What are the changes?

The Chinese Government has implemented many changes and essentially this includes the following:

  • 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.

It is unclear where this places those institutes that have partnered up with Chinese institutes, but some Chinese universities have started to cancel their links and joint projects with foreign universities. This is worrying time and begs the question why.

Why is this happening?

If you look at the recommended changes occurring in China, it is not just education which is being affected. There are many policy changes that has been implemented such as children in China (under the age of 18) having a total of 3 hours to play computer games online between Friday to Sunday each week, children being forced to study the thoughts and political ideology of Xi Jinping (the country’s leader), celebrity culture (both foreign or Chinese-based) being banned or Beijing banning western coursebooks from the curriculum. The official narrative is that children in China should not be forced to study at private institutes, and that they should enjoy themselves being children. This is commendable, as I agree that children should enjoy their childhood.

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.

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