From Petrol to Pixels: How Online Teaching Sustained Us and Shaped the Last Seven Years

There is a quiet kind of turning point that does not announce itself when it happens.

At the time, it looks like loss. Or limitation. Or simply survival.

Only later do you realize it was redirection.

My own online teaching journey began not with confidence, but with necessity.

The accident that quietly changed everything

In early 2016, I lost my car.

It was a Toyota Corolla, fully paid off for just two months. After years of financial discipline, that car represented independence. It meant freedom of movement, freedom from debt, and the ability to continue building my tutoring work across Pretoria.

Then one afternoon, while sitting in stationary traffic, a driver behind me—distracted on his phone in a Nissan Infiniti SUV—looked up too late and crashed into the back of my car.

The damage was severe enough that the vehicle was declared a write-off.

The insurance payout was about R30,000, roughly $2,500 USD at the time.

That money did not replace the car. It became our living expenses.

My tutoring income was modest and unpredictable, and there was no realistic way to purchase a similar vehicle with what insurance provided. From that point onward, I began using my parents-in-law’s 1981 Mercedes-Benz, which I still use today.

It is a vehicle I am deeply grateful for. But it was never mine, and its fuel consumption in Pretoria traffic made face-to-face tutoring economically unsustainable. Much of what I earned disappeared into petrol.

That season was marked by financial uncertainty, loss of independence, and the quiet weight of responsibility as a husband trying to provide stability.

Looking back, it was also the season that forced me toward something new.

Returning to study: rebuilding foundations in 2017

I had completed my first TEFL certificate in 2004, and it had served me well during my international teaching years. But by 2017, the industry had evolved.

When I applied for overseas teaching positions again, a recruiter told me plainly: my Level 3, 100-hour TEFL certificate no longer met current standards.

It was difficult news, but it clarified what needed to be done.

With limited income, I enrolled in a Level 5, 168-hour TEFL Diploma course. My mother-in-law graciously helped cover the upfront payment when the course was on special, and I repaid her later with tutoring income.

During that diploma course, I encountered something that would change the direction of my professional life:

Online teaching.

For the first time, I saw that it was possible to teach students globally while working from home in South Africa. No commuting. No fuel costs. No geographical limitation.

Just connection, preparation, and consistency.

I completed the diploma in January 2018.

Within weeks, I began applying.

EF First: the humble beginning of online teaching

In February 2018, I was accepted by EF First.

The pay was modest—approximately:

• R90 per 45-minute lesson
• R40 per 25-minute lesson

By international standards, this was very low. Yet, remarkably, I was earning more than I had been through face-to-face tutoring—without driving across Pretoria.

My mother-in-law helped me secure a Telkom LTE router package, which became the technological foundation of my new career.

I taught as many hours as I could get—typically 4 to 5 hours per day—gradually building experience, confidence, and professional rhythm.

Online teaching was no longer theoretical. It was working.

Hujiang: the first signs of financial stability

With experience behind me, I applied to a Chinese platform called Hujiang, which offered $7.50 USD per 30-minute lesson.

My workload increased significantly. I was teaching 5 to 6 hours per day, five to six days per week.

For the first time, we experienced real financial improvement.

We were able to begin buying basic necessities independently—things my parents-in-law had generously helped provide for years.

These may seem like small victories. But they represented restored dignity and forward motion.

Online teaching was becoming not just income—but sustainability.

Iraq: a temporary interruption, not a detour

In 2018, an opportunity arose to work on the PetroChina Oilfield project in Iraq, which I wrote about in an earlier blog post.

This interrupted my online teaching journey for approximately six months in total.

Yet even that season clarified something important.

Online teaching was not simply a temporary income stream. It was a viable long-term profession—one that aligned with both my abilities and our circumstances.

When I returned, I pursued it more deliberately.

Skyeng: the foundation of the last seven years

In April 2019, I joined Skyeng, where I have remained ever since.

Initially, I taught only four classes per day, while completing additional academic commitments. But once I opened my schedule fully, my workload increased to between 25 and 40 teaching hours per week.

Over the past seven years, I have:

• Taught over 7,000 online lessons
• Worked with more than 170 students
• Helped adult professionals improve their English for real-world communication

My students have included engineers, analysts, managers, consultants, IT professionals, and executives from international companies.

Online teaching has been both a profession and a continuous education. Through my students, I have learned about industries, cultures, and perspectives from around the world.

It has been, in every sense, a breadwinner. 

Working globally while navigating local realities in South Africa

While online teaching removed the limitations of geography, it did not remove the realities of infrastructure and security challenges in South Africa.

Working online from Pretoria has required constant adaptation to conditions beyond my control:

• Loadshedding and power cuts, sometimes multiple times per day
• Declining infrastructure, affecting electricity and water supply
• Internet instability, particularly during peak network congestion
• Water outages, which disrupt normal daily routines
• And broader safety concerns—Pretoria and surrounding areas consistently rank among high-crime regions globally

Online teaching depends entirely on reliability. If power fails, the classroom disappears instantly.

To maintain professional continuity, I gradually invested in essential backup systems:

• UPS units to protect my computer and internet connection
• Portable power stations to sustain lessons during outages
• Backup generators for extended power cuts
• Rechargeable lighting systems to maintain visibility
• Even walkie-talkies, to maintain communication on the property during infrastructure failures

These were not luxury purchases. They were necessary tools for professional survival in an environment where infrastructure could not always be relied upon.

Teaching online from South Africa requires not just skill—but resilience and preparation.

Building a life locally while working globally

Throughout this journey, our physical life has remained rooted in Pretoria.

We live in a separate flat on my parents-in-law’s property—a practical arrangement that has allowed us to remain financially stable and debt-free.

Right after COVID, in 2022, I was able to build my own Nutec garden office, approximately 10 square meters, entirely from savings at a cost of about $3,000 USD.

That small office became my professional base—a quiet space where thousands of lessons have taken place.

My teaching schedule is primarily in the evenings, aligned with my students’ time zones. I work most evenings except Sundays. This rhythm has naturally limited our social life—but evening outings carry their own risks in South Africa, and working from home provides both safety and stability.

Online teaching can also be isolating. There are no colleagues nearby, no shared office space, and no physical separation between work and home. Over time, this can blur boundaries and lead to periods of fatigue or burnout.

Yet it has also provided something invaluable: continuity.

Outside of work, life has been lived simply and locally:

• Walks in the Pretoria Botanical Gardens
• Meals at Afro Boer Restaurant, Sooper Eats, and Wimpy
• Weekend visits to the Pretoria Boeremark
• Occasional outings to The Grove Mall
• Several restful stays at Klein Kariba Resort

We did not travel far, partly because of an old car. But stability itself became a kind of provision.

Online teaching made it possible to build a life without constant relocation. 

Henry English Hub: building something of my own

In February 2025, I began developing my own platform: Henry English Hub.

This began with a simple website, followed by my first teacher resource eBook, Teaching Without Borders.

From there, the project expanded into a structured ecosystem:

• Additional eBooks for online teachers
• The English Journey course trilogy:
• Upper-Intermediate Ascent (B2–C1)
• Intermediate Foundations (B1–B2)
• Summit of the Cultured Professional (C1–C2)
• And now, a dedicated Business English course in development

These resources are built from lived experience—not theory, but practice.

They exist to help:

• Adult learners achieve professional-level English fluency
• Future teachers build sustainable online teaching careers

Through my website, I now offer 1-to-1 online lessons, alongside structured courses and teacher resources.

It is the natural extension of everything the past seven years have taught me.

What this journey has meant

Online teaching has done more than provide income.

It has provided stability when other paths closed.

It has allowed me to remain present locally while working globally.

It has required resilience, discipline, and adaptation to conditions beyond my control.

Most importantly, it has shown me that provision often comes quietly—through persistence, preparation, and faithfulness in small daily work.

I continue teaching today—not out of obligation, but out of gratitude and purpose.

The journey continues.

Soli Deo Gloria

What makes a good and successful online teacher?

Introduction

English is the lingua Franca of the world. Businesses and organizations around the world need to be able to communicate with each other to function properly and show profits. The world revolves around money and money in turn revolves around successful business communication. That common business language is English and that is the reason why the TEFL industry is one of the biggest industries in the world. Over many years the face-to-face mode of instruction was the most personal and practical mode, but with the advent of the internet, online teaching has grown very fast, particularly over the last 5 years where hundreds of online schools have shot up like mushrooms.

In 2020, we saw physical education institutes having to close their doors due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, a further incentive for all the online schools to increase their student numbers. Now more than ever, online education is the way forward, until things return back to normal. But even when things go back to normal the whole education landscape might have been altered irreparably and more and more the online mode of education will replace the physical one. More and more teachers are discovering the benefits of online education, and it might be difficult to sway them to return to the old system, once they have discovered the benefits of online education, especially with respect to the bad salaries teachers get paid in the public school system.

As a freelance online English (EFL) teacher, I have learned some things over the last 2 years and 8 months I would like to share with you. For most who are doing this as a hobby or extra income, this article might not be of interest, but for those who have to earn a living from online teaching, it might help. In this article I want to address two issues: Firstly, the different modes or types of online teaching, and secondly, the interpersonal skills needed to become one, stay one, and to become successful by growing your Teacherpreneural business.

Modes of online teaching

I have been teaching English online for the past 2 years and 8 months and have done more than 2000 lessons with adult students across the world. I started out with Education First for a meager 6 USD per hour more than 2 years ago, then teaching for a Chinese company called Hujiang where I technically got 7.5 USD per hour (They said 15 USD per hour, but you get 7.5 USD per 25 minutes lesson and it takes you another half-hour to complete the grading) and lastly for a Russian company named Skyeng where I have nearly tripled that original hourly rate to 17 USD per hour.

There are basically 3 types of online teaching. Firstly, you can work as a freelancer for one or more schools on a contractual basis. In this case, they provide everything, including the platform, training on how to use that platform and what methodology they prefer, lesson materials, scheduling, marketing, customer service, tech support, and financial services. As a teacher all you need to do is prep for the lesson, which is in most cases very little time, pitch up for the lesson on time, teach the student according to school preferred methodologies, and in return get an agreed-upon hourly rate. There are hundreds of these online schools that a teacher can work for.

Secondly, there is an option to register and create a profile, as a freelance teacher, on a semi-independent basis at an online marketplace/platform such as Verbal planet, i-talki, and a very new one I recently joined called anytutor37. Here the online market place provides you with an opportunity to create a profile and then function within that marketplace as your own business entity to teach students. The company provides you with a profile, scheduling capacity, and tech support, but does not provide any lesson materials, nor marketing. I will dig a little deeper into this when I share my teaching experience with i-talki. Not to be given lesson materials or resources, is however not the end of the world, as there are companies, such as Off2class that one can pay to provide you with access to fully professionally developed ESL materials for all levels (Beginner to Advanced) and all areas of ESL (General English, Business English, IELTS & TOEFL Exam prep, Listening, Reading, Speaking activities, Grammar, and Functional language). For minimal fees, one does not necessarily need to re-invent the wheel, especially as time in our industry, as in many others, is the most precious commodity. One gets paid for a teaching hour and not a prep hour, so obviously, prep time needs to be kept to the minimum.

Thirdly, you may opt to go fully independent, teaching separate from any online school or online market platform where you have to compete with other teachers for either an hourly rate or a limited amount of students. The internet is your oyster, you can market where you want to teach the students you prefer, and ask the rate you wish, without any limitations. Only it is not as easy as it seems or sounds….

1. Working as a freelancer for an online ESL school

If you work for an online school they will take about 50% plus a chunk of what you can earn. At my current school students pay more than 30 USD per hour for a native speaking English teacher. I only get a little over 50% of that. In all fairness, the school has to pay for marketing, managers, tech support….and ultimately their stockholders and the owner would also like to see a fair amount of that. Thus, if you do work as a freelance online English teacher for an online school your income potential is rather limited. That is if you prefer to teach adults only. For some reason or the other, which I struggle to grasp, your income potential teaching ESL/English online for a school that caters to children, is somewhat higher, and many native teachers teaching children between 5 and 16 earn anything between 18 and 35 USD per hour, depending on the school.

2. Having a profile as a freelancer on an online ESL market place or platform

In this mode of teaching online, a freelance teacher is able to register an online profile on an online market places such as Verbalplanet, i-talki, or anytutor37 (There are several others, and a Google search will reveal them). In this scenario, the teacher creates an online profile with his biographical info, his profile picture, his teaching methodology and an introduction video that can set him or her apart from other teachers. He or she then opens the time slots that he or she is available and students can then search for different teachers on the platform and if he or she would like to book a lesson, he or she just follows the steps. Here the teacher can determine his own hourly rate but must keep in mind that he competes with thousands of other teachers worldwide, so he needs to ask an hourly rate that is affordable and that will make students want to book with him.

In the beginning especially, the teacher should ask low rates to build up a reputation. The more lessons the teacher conducts the higher he or she may move up in the search results. At the start it is thus important to accrue as many completed lessons that may be credited to your account, thus forcing one to lower your hourly rates and also offering trial lessons for 1-4USD per 30 mins trial lesson, just to get your number of completed lessons up as quickly as possible. The faster the teacher completes lessons the higher his ranking in search results.

Those who want to enter the market with very high lesson rates, even though they might deserve those rates, fail to climb rankings in search results and may get stuck there, failing to properly off the ground. It is thus a business the teacher has to build slowly from the ground, initially charging cheaper competitive rates, but later on, once well-established and with a proper sustainable and reliable client base, may charge the rates and fees he or she wishes.

The teacher literally has his own little one-man-band teaching business within the open market place and works semi-independently for himself. The term being used lately is that of a Teacherpreneur. However, there are costs involved. These open market places, such as i-talki, will take 15% of his earnings, and there are other commissions and fees one has to pay, such as PayPal that takes a commission when the teacher wants to withdraw his earnings via PayPal into his bank account.

The teacher may also want to make use of an online platform that has ready-made, professionally developed lesson materials, such as Off2Class and depending on the number of students he or she has, will need to pay a monthly subscription fee as an additional cost. These costs add up and may diminish earnings somewhat, which will compel teachers that consider this form of online teaching to increase their rates as to make provision for these overheads, which may, in turn, price them out of the market competitively. This type of online teaching thus requires some patience and humility on the part of a teacher that wants to function semi-independently.

3. Fully independent: No platforms or commissions

This sounds great, doesn’t it? You don’t need to work for a company neither do you have to share some of your earnings with an online open marketplace. Despite the obvious benefits such as independence, unlimited fees, and rates and determining one’s own rules, terms and conditions; what are the disadvantages or rather the challenges of setting up this own teaching business where the teacher is the CEO, the teacher, the bookkeeper, the admin assistant, and the chief cook and bottle washer? Well, the question itself says everything: You have to be and do everything. You will need some IT skills such as creating and managing your own website and Social Media presence, as well as either having or quickly learning how to effectively market yourself online via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Furthermore, you need to set up an e-commerce store or online store, using a service such as Ecwid, and fully integrate that into your website, because you want students to pay you for your services. That means setting up PayPal or Payoneer and linking that with your bank account so that you can withdraw your earnings into your bank account. You won’t have a tech support team or IT developer expert behind you to sort our issues, you will need to do it yourself unless you have funds to afford services like that. There is no online school or open market place to organize your scheduling on your behalf or help you with tech issues, you and only you will need to communicate with the student and do the scheduling. I think you get the picture, if something needs to be done, you’re it, and the buck stops with you. Then again, if you do have the courage and the skills and resourcefulness, and mostly the drive to set it up and wait a bit, hourly rates for teachers like these can be anything between 30 and 100 USD, and a 10 000 USD monthly income, usually reserved for lawyers, doctors, pilots, and engineers, may be yours for the taking.

Not to mention all the benefits of working remotely from the comfort of your own home. No traffic jams, no ‘office-wear’ expenses, spending your off-hours with your family, essentially not being overworked and underpaid by a governmental education department (This applies throughout the world, but more so in my native South Africa) and not having to face the “crocodile” every day, with the added Coronavirus epidemic, that brings most school teachers to their knees and to tears everyday….just so that they can make more debt to pay off their other debt. Online teaching has increased in its popularity now more than ever, because apart from some disadvantages that are few and insignificant, it allows for teachers to not only be appreciated in words (Which in some countries does not even apply), but to be fairly and financially rewarded, so that they too can taste the good things in life.

The key here however is that it takes time to get skilled in all the various aspects of setting it up; it takes courage, patience, and perseverance. However, It can be done! In the opinion of the writer and from his own personal experience, I think it prudent, responsible and manageable to start off by working for an online school that pays you a fixed hourly rate, until you come to grips with the industry, the methodologies, the trends, until you gain experience on how to teach online. I was a face-to-face teacher for 17 years and it is a different way of doing things. You no longer stand in front of a whiteboard or blackboard with students in chairs in front of you, you are now in front of a screen in a digital classroom and you need to change your teaching style somewhat, you need to learn to use the tools and digital whiteboard to teach digitally.

You gain experience only by sitting in your “online” chair and learning to use all the tools effectively, by making mistakes, lots of mistakes and laughing at yourself, apologizing to your students a lot for many things that are sometimes beyond your control…..there are so many variables, so many things that can go wrong, like tech issues, connection issues, if you live in South Africa, power failures and load-shedding, students with personal issues, etc. For more than one day, especially during the worldwide lockdown period, I had to counsel my students, who were panicking….some students have lost their jobs, others were home-bound and getting depressed. Not only are you responsible for their English language learning, you sometimes need to listen, to encourage, be Dr. Phil on the air for them. Students are not machines or case numbers, they are real people with real needs, who sometimes just wanna chat about life because they are afraid and uncertain as to what the future may bring. In these surreal situations, your framework of referencing needs to extend beyond just teaching English, it must include the emotional and mental welfare of your student. That means, you yourself must have acquired these skills from the “University of life”.

If you are willing to go semi-independent or fully independent, your income potential becomes unlimited (There are teachers out there working for themselves earning anything between 30-100 USD per hour). At the moment I do teach semi-independently with i-talki where teachers can set their own rates, but the downfall is that you have to do your own marketing to attract students. I-talki merely provides teachers with an online market platform within which they can operate as their own online teaching business entity. Teachers may ask what they like, but in order to be competitive and attract students, you can’t price yourself out of the market. You have to slowly build your online teaching business over time, logging as many lessons as you can for cheaper competitive prices until you have conducted enough lessons to show up in the search results. It seems only those with the most lessons show up on the first page of the search results when potential students are looking for language teachers. It is thus a catch-22 situation. You don’t want to undersell your value, but it seems according to research that students only trust and book teachers who have conducted many lessons, and they won’t fall over their feet to book teachers with few or fewer lessons than those who have conducted hundreds or even thousands of lessons. It is thus very difficult to get your foot in the door. In the last 5 months since I have joined i-talki I have only conducted 80 lessons with 2 regular Russian students, a Croatian student, and a couple of one-off ‘walk-ins’. I get less approximately 14.50 USD per 45 minutes lesson, which is less than what I get at my current full-time employer. I-talki also takes a 15% service fee for providing an online market platform, scheduling, general marketing, customer service support, and for ensuring payment, which is all fair enough. It does however mean that in order to get approximately 14.50 USD you have to charge the student approximately 16.50 USD.

During the lockdown, when my Russian company could not provide the ideal amount of lessons which I had per week during the pre-lockdown period, i-talki provided a supplemental income that came in very handy, so I was happy with getting less, but at least getting something rather than nothing. One does however need to patiently build your i-talki profile and presence until you have reached that golden amount of lessons that will ensure that algorithms start to promote your profile on the main page. There are thousands of English teachers on i-talki and you only start to get noticed when you have conducted many hundreds of lessons at least. That is of course unless you are able to attract your own students to your i-talki profile through various social media ad campaigns that you have to vigorously drive yourself.

For those teachers that want to go fully independent, not sharing any of their income with online market platforms such as i-talki, the road to success is even harder. An independent teacher has to create his or her own website and market that via Social Media sites. There are no guarantees but if successful, the income potential could be up to 100 USD per hour lesson. There are experts like James Liu who offer workshops to teachers who want to go fully independent. They offer step-by-step lessons and instructions on how to set up your own independent online teaching business and how to market it appropriately, to become a fully independent entrepreneur. Well, I’m not there yet. Even though I have my own fully functional website, called TEFLMAXONLINE, where students can book lessons from, I neither have the time, nor money to market myself at the moment. It is however something that I’m working towards.

So what are the things that makes a person suitable and good at online teaching?

Apart from all the things mentioned above on how to become a successful teacherpreneur, such as being tech-savvy and having the drive and motivation to sit in a chair for 5 hours plus a day and engage with all sorts of people from over the world with different language and social skill barriers; you need to possess certain inter-personal skills. Interpersonal skills are the skills required to effectively communicate, interact, and work with individuals and groups. Those with good interpersonal skills are strong verbal and non-verbal communicators and are often considered to be “good with people”. (Corporate finance Institute, 2015:online). These skills include: Awareness (of yourself and others), Caring about other people and comforting people when they need it, Empathy for others, Encouraging and inspiring people to do their best, Inspiring and motivating others to active greatness, Respect for everyone, no matter who they are, Sensitivity toward the preferences and wishes of others Clear communication skills, Conflict management and resolution skills, Diplomacy (handling affairs without hostility), Flexibility in thinking and operating style, Humour and light-heartedness, Listening well, Networking and building relationships, Non-verbal cues and body language, Patience when dealing with others, Socializing skills, Being good at building trust, and Tolerance and respect.

It is important to build rapport over a period of time. My students, some of whom have done more than 100 lessons with me, are not merely a number or a client. I show interest in their private and personal lives, lending an ear when there challenges in their lives and giving encouragement when needed. I share my life, my challenges, adventures, emotions with them in turn and give them an opportunity to have inputs into my life, so they also feel part of that. This builds mutual respect and trust, and that, in turn, brings about and establishes long-term partnerships and even in some cases friendship. In a later post, I will go into more detail about the necessary interpersonal skills needed by a teacher, but if I have to highlight the 3 most important skills an online teacher should possess, I will have to say that they are: Firstly, being able to build trust and rapport by respecting others and being aware of different cultures, secondly, being a good listener (Some platforms encourage this in their KPI’s by requiring the teacher to limit Teacher Talk Time (TTT) and increasing Student Talk Time (STT)), and lastly, humor and light-heartedness. I try to make my students laugh as much as possible, but that is my unique style.

It is important to harness your own personality strengths, cultivating your own unique style and utilizing that in your lessons, to encourage recurring and returning students who like your particular style of teaching and who are benefitting from that, to keep on coming back for more, not just because you might be this amazing Grammar expert or excellent teacher, but because you care about them as a person and an individual. This does not mean that you will ‘click’ with everyone and that everyone who starts with you will stay to the end, but where possible the right type of student fit for your personality will remain with you long term. And that is what you want, a sustainable livelihood by building a good reputation that will spread by word of mouth to increase your clientele and continue to make your little Teacherpreneurial business grow.

For many, due to COVID 19 and consequent lockdown and other restrictions, regular jobs or regular face to face teaching jobs are no longer available or possible. Online teaching is a way to earn a livelihood remotely. Apart from the qualifications (At least a 3 year Bachelor’s degree and a TEFL certificate) and inter-personal skills (mentioned above) necessary, one needs to have the courage to make the transition from working face-to-face with people to engaging with them online and remotely. This transition is very easy for younger people as they grew up in this tech-savvy age, but it can pose some challenges for older people like me. These are however not insurmountable, as long as one has an attitude and aptitude for learning new things. It took me a while, but now after nearly 3 years of conducting online lessons, I can see my efforts come to fruition.

Conclusion

Online teaching has become increasingly more popular for both teachers and students. Due to the Geo-political landscape over the last 8 months many skilled people across the world have lost their jobs and livelihoods. Teaching English online in particular is a way for many of these professionals to put food on the table each month. However, before you consider doing this consider whether you have what it takes to be an online teacher, not only with regards to qualifications but also with regards to personality and skills. It is a very competitive industry now quickly getting over-saturated with people trying to earn a living. Make sure that you count not only the rewards of becoming an online teacher but that you also calculate the cost and efforts you may need to invest. 

So, you want to do online teaching?

The viability of teaching English online

Introduction & Background

Many mainstream school teachers, in South Africa, in particular, want to, or more correctly, have to supplement their teaching income with extra jobs, just to keep the pot cooking. Online teaching is a home-based job that appeals to many as it provides a lot of freedom with regards to scheduling classes, and the fact that there are no expensive input costs, such as transport. One can sit in the comfort of one’s own home and access online classrooms to teach English to students all over the world, whilst earning that little bit of extra cash to help out.

In my case however, it’s my main job. As a white Afrikaans male, in a post-Apartheid political system characterised by ‘fair’ discrimination, such as BEE and Affirmative Action, it has been my experience over the last 25 years that in South Africa, I’m either unemployed or severely under-employed. I came across the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) industry in 2003, when after another year of being unemployed, I sought to work overseas.

The reason I was moved to write this post, was due to the fact that I belong to a Teachers Facebook group here in SA with approximately 29 000 members where teaching jobs are posted or where teachers want to know about Education legislation in SA that affects them or just ask for classroom teaching advice. Now and again there is an inquiry from a mainstream school teacher about online teaching. I posted some advice, which triggered a multitude of inquiries. If you are interested in the concept of online teaching, I will share here with you some of my experiences and provide info on how to set it up.

Online teaching

TEFL – (Teaching English as Foreign Language)

I accepted my first TEFL job in 2003 in Taiwan, and has never looked back since then. At that time I only held a law degree, and I only completed my TEFL certificate during my first job in Taiwan. That was the beginning of my TEFL career, and since then I have taught EFL/ESP/EAP in Taiwan, China, Sudan, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. When my wife and I returned from Saudi Arabia in 2015, nothing much has changed politically or economically in South Africa. With unemployment rife at 50% and AA and BEE policies as stringent as ever, I found it impossible to find any kind of employment in South Africa, even though I held 3 degrees at honours level, a host of ETDP qualifications, and loads of international teaching experience.

In 2017 I decided to ‘up’ my TEFL qualifications for the international market, after being advised to do so by a British recruiter. I held a mere 100-hour online TEFL certificate, that even though it opened many doors, not even my degrees could open, became outdated and insufficient for the better TEFL jobs. The EFL industry required a minimum of a 120-hour TEFL certification. I came across a TQUK accredited level 5 certificate in TEFL by the TEFL Academy worth a 168 hours and I enrolled for it. It was online, so you could access all the learning materials online. 

After each module, there was a test, but the course also included 3 written assignments where one had to apply all the course material in preparing actual lessons. It did not include any observed classroom teaching, which was the only lack. The most prestigious TEFL course is the Cambridge CELTA, a one-month full-time intensive face to face course, which is offered by International House in only 3 locations in South Africa, namely Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. The cost is approximately ZAR 15 000 (1025 US$) excluding accommodation, but well worth it, as this little certificate will open doors to great EFL positions across the world.

Teaching ESL

How did it begin?

One of the modules in the TQUK TEFL certificate course I did in 2017, introduced online teaching. At that time I was driving many kilometres with an old Mercedes Benz to the homes of students doing tutoring for some face-to-face tutoring companies. I lost most of the time nearly half of my tutoring fee to petrol costs. I started to do some research on the viability of online teaching and was astonished to see how strong this industry has become. The internet is now nearly in every home across the world, and relatively cheap. It also cuts travel time and costs for both students and teachers, making English lessons more affordable.

I started my job search and in early 2018 I applied for my first online teaching job with EducationFirst. Education First outsourced online teaching to South Africa, since they could get cheaper labour in South Africa. They established a huge online teaching centre in Bryanston, Johannesburg where South African teachers would sit in this huge call centre and teach students from China, Taiwan, Japan, South America, Europe, and Russia. Later, it seems the staff could not handle the call volume and they expanded by appointing home-based EFL/ESL online teachers working from home. I was one of approximately a hundred home-based teachers to work from home and teach English online.

After my initial interview, I was given access to an online training course that provides full training on how to use the platform and how to conduct the lesson. It also provided the lesson structure one should follow and tips and tricks on how to make it interesting to students. I then started to teach students from all over the world, either doing 20-minute sessions (for ZAR 40) or 40-minute sessions (for ZAR 90). The call centre managed the scheduling and during each session I had a different student (Unlike Skyeng, to be discussed later). This was hardly a lucrative affair; on average I earned ZAR 4000 per month. 

However, I gained lots of experience and grew in self-confidence. The lesson slides in the online platform were provided for the teacher, so prep time was minimal. From the beginning I made it clear that I want to focus on teaching adults and that I prefer teaching students one-on-one, so one’s profile indicates your preferences, and the sessions you conduct suits your preferences.

Most online teaching companies in the world cater specifically for children only (usually ages 5 – 16). Few companies it seems cater for adults only, and I would say a lot of companies cater for both. If you want to teach children you can look at earning on average between 20 - 35 USD per hour. Teaching adults is a lot less lucrative at, on average paying 7 – 15 USD per hour. At the start of my TEFL career I taught primary aged and Kindergarten kids in China and Taiwan, using songs, realia, TPR…..jumping up and down to entertain. Later on, my TEFL career shifted to teaching ESP (English for Specific Purposes) and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) to adults and students….and at 45, I have less energy to employ these various techniques in an online classroom. 

So I prefer adults and adult conversational topics, as it also engages my interests and energises me. But to each his own. We all have different gifts and abilities and there are teachers who really enjoy teaching kids, using props and other lesson materials that engages kids. That is a matter of preference. The fact is that if you are willing and eager to teach kids online, you are looking at a higher income potential per hour.

Having fun

Teaching for a Chinese company

Three months later, in May of 2018, I applied for another position with Hujiang, a Chinese-owned and run online teaching centre, based in Shanghai. Hujiang had an initial interview with me and selected me to do a demo. I was provided one of their 25 minute lessons on their platform to prepare beforehand. Initially, I failed the first demo due to the fact that I was unable to do the whole lesson within the 25 minutes. All Hujiang lessons include a warmer, the actual lesson, and 2 role plays. One really has to hurry up to get through the lesson content in 25 minutes, and there are no allowances for contingencies like tech issues, or a student struggling to express him or herself. I was then advised to try again and redo the demo, with strong emphasis on time management. I passed my second demo, after which I was provided with training online on how to use their platform (CC Talk) and online classroom with all its functionalities.

The online training is also very helpful and teaches you strategies and techniques on how to effectively do online teaching. Topics that are included in the training are time management, error correction, giving feedback and lesson structure. Once you pass the course, you provide them with times that you are available to teach. Most companies require a minimum of 12 hours per week that you need to make yourself available for. Since it was a Chinese company, specialising in teaching adults one-on-one, the peak hours were 6 – 11 pm BJT (Beijing Time) Beijing is GMT +8. South Africa is GMT +2, which means you have to deduct 6 hours in SA. That meant that if I wanted to be available to teach from 6 – 11 pm BJT, I would have to be available between 12 – 5 pm in SA. Usually, most schools, also require that the hours you made yourself available for, that a large amount of those hours be during peak hours. I now teach for Skyeng, a Russian company, which uses Moscow Time, which is GMT +3, and much closer to SA time, so with regards to scheduling a good option for South Africans.

With Hujiang I made 15 USD per hour, but there is a catch. Each lesson is 25 minutes and counts as half an hour. After each lesson, you are to fill in a grading report which can take anything from 15 – 25 minutes to do. So if you teach 25 minutes and do grading for another 25 minutes, your hour is up, but you have technically only earned 7.5 USD for the 25 minutes teaching time. It meant that I scheduled only one 25 minute session per hour in order to give me time to complete the grading in the second part of the hour. I used a cheat sheet, compiled from thousands of comments I could get my hands on with regards to 4 areas: Pronunciation, Grammar, Vocabulary, and Fluency. 

There was also a space where you had to make recommendations. If one had to type it, it could even take longer. I used this cheat sheet to copy and paste comments into these areas, so I could do grading in 7-10 minutes, altering a few details here or there or personalising it to that specific student. The reality was however, that if you wanted to provide proper feedback to a student in his grading report, it was not really possible to do two 25 minute lessons in one hour as there would be insufficient time for the grading. At certain times I did, but then I had to do grading at the end of my teaching for that day.

Hujiang also prescribed that you do grading for a particular lesson within 4 hours after giving it, so it was better to do it after completing a lesson. I designed a grade notes template, which I printed out and used to make notes of a student and the lesson whilst teaching that student. I realised that many teachers were not as thorough with the grading as I attempted to be and I guess that many managed to do two 25 minute sessions per hour. The reality for me was that I was earning 7.5 USD per hour, which limited my income potential to approximately ZAR 8 000 (550 USD per month).

With Hujiang, unlike Education First and Skyeng, only the audio and not the video, in the virtual classroom, was used to communicate with the student, that meant no requirements with regards to your background or any dress code prescriptions; you merely spoke with the student as you would on a phone. I think this worked well for the Chinese students, where a natural shyness is part of their culture. This is, however, the exception. The big majority of companies require a video feed in addition to the audio, so that the student can see you, which is essential when you teach children or very low-level students with TPR, Realia, gestures, etc. to convey instructions and word meaning (vocabulary). 

Each company has slightly different background requirements. In general, most companies require a white or light blue clear background, like a wall. There should be no bright light behind you as teacher as the webcam would darken you as teacher and blind or irritate the student. Instead, the light should be to the back of a laptop or desktop, facing the teacher. It’s advisable the teacher sits in front of an open window with natural light pouring onto his or her face. Obviously, different strategies apply when you teach at night. The main idea is that the teacher is well lit and that there is no distraction in the background, or a busy background that breaks the student’s concentration. 

Online teachers who teach children, have whiteboards behind them and loads of props or realia to entertain kids. They probably want their background to look like a children’s classroom with appropriate posters. This is however not my specialty, as I focus on adults. Each company has a virtual classroom with pre-prepared level specific slides and whiteboard functionalities within the virtual classroom, where teachers who teach adults can share info or materials with the student.

Chinese students

Full time vs part time

There are those that do online teaching full time, teaching approximately 40 hours per week (including weekends) with an income potential of anything between 1500 – 3000 USD per month. That is of course if you don’t have another full-time job. In the South African context, as a mainstream school teacher, trying to supplement your very small salary, you can realistically do 15 hours per week, probably sacrificing your Saturday (Weekends are peak times at all online teaching companies), looking at a 500 – 600 USD (ZAR 7500 – R8 800) additionally per month. There are so many variables, however. It takes a while to establish yourself and your popularity as a teacher, so nobody starts off with teaching 40 hours per week.

I started off with Skyeng 6 weeks ago, and I’m now only on 14 hours per week. The teachers with 40 hours per week had to build that student base and it took them 6 months. You will have to start with the amount they provide and build on it. Hujiang, as well as Skyeng, for which I currently teach, take your info, your pic, a self-intro video/audio, your teaching philosophy and they create a profile for you on their teacher database. Students then have access to this profile and if they like what they see, book a lesson with you.

There are also certain times of the year when it is low season, for example, the summer months in Russia (May to July), when students go on holiday. This affects bookings and income. On Skyeng for example, each teacher has a teacher page (in Skyeng terminology a ‘Private cabinet’) that contains your schedule and KPI (Performance index). This measures your performance. Things that negatively affects your performance include lesson cancellations or negative feedback from your student. If you get rewards/compliments from your students like ‘productive lesson’ or ‘interesting conversation’, your KPI score goes up and you are likely to get more students quicker.

E-learning versus traditional teaching

Teaching for a Russian Company

I had a break from online teaching when I went to Iraq as a program manager for an ELT program based at an oilfield. Upon my return, I merely looked at sites such as TEFL.com, where online teaching jobs are posted and applied for positions again. I started about two and a half months ago with the process of applying, being interviewed, doing a demo, doing the training and starting to earn. My latest company I do online teaching for, is a Moscow-based company, called Skyeng. It is the biggest online teaching school in Eastern Europe with more than 6000 teachers from across the world, most being home-based teachers working from home, many doing it full time due to a worldwide economic recession.

There are many South Africans working for Skyeng. South Africans are classified as native speakers, part of the ‘big five’ (or big six) of countries that provide English native speakers, namely the UK, US, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. If you look at most TEFL jobs being advertised, whether it is actual teaching at a location or online teaching, South Africans are on the list, but usually mentioned last, as there is, of course, a big debate whether many of us who also speak Afrikaans and are bi-lingual can actually be classified as native speakers.

Well let me say this to the ‘English speaking’ snobs of the so-called first world, I have an IELTS band score in Academic English of 8 out of 9 and I think many Brits and Americans are in fact hesitant to go assess their English proficiency as they are worried their level might be lower than they would like to believe. Second language, or in the case of South Africa, bi-lingual speakers, are in fact the best Grammar teachers, with the most neutral accents. I think there are many ‘native’ speakers in any case who only catch every third or fourth word our Irish and Scottish friends utter, not to speak of the students they are teaching….probably thinking they are speaking Greek or something.

With Skyeng I’m earning at the moment 12 USD per 50 minutes session. All their materials are pre-prepared on their platform. One merely signs in on your ‘Private cabinet’ and then have access to your schedule and all the materials in their virtual classroom. As stated before, my students are working adults so they are free after work and during weekends (Mon-Friday 5 – 11 pm Moscow Time) which in South Africa translates to 4-10 pm. This means that my days are open to doing other things. At the moment I’m enrolled for a PGCE to qualify myself as a licensed teacher. So I can study during my off-hours. I have opened up 25 hours on my schedule, but as stated before I have only 14 lessons per week booked. This amount has been increasing every week since I started and I expect to be on 25 hours within the next couple of months. This will enable me to fund my studies, whilst at the same time covering our basic needs, such as groceries, toiletries, and medical expenses.

With Skyeng, unlike Hujiang and EF, I get regular students, so there is an opportunity to build rapport and track that student’s progression. I find this a better approach than having to teach a different student each lesson. One gets to know each student individually and start to cater to their specific needs, one is also able to view their progress and improvement and gets satisfaction from that. With Skyeng there is furthermore no time-consuming grading afterward; one merely has to mark that the lesson took place.

Teaching online could be relaxing and fun

Online tutoring vs Online ESL Teaching

One must then distinguish between online tutoring and ESL online teaching. Many teachers would like to do tutoring after hours for an extra income. The older teacher prefers face-to-face tutoring, travelling to the student/learner’s home and tutoring him or her face-to-face. Been there done that…..as mentioned before, high fuel costs cut your fee in half. Now, a lot of online tutoring companies are springing up, or face-to-face tutoring companies are expanding their services to now also include an online component. In this case school subjects, where English is also included, but as a school subject with a Literature component, are being tutored to kids online. So, teachers can now tutor SA school subjects to kids across South Africa online. 

ESL online teaching, on the other hand, is aimed at students in countries where English is not a native or L1 language and due to English being the Lingua Franca of the International Business world, students in these countries, out of necessity to compete, feel pressured to learn English. This is the ESL/EFL industry worldwide which up to 10-15 years ago was being conducted mostly through face-to-face teaching. That meant a Native English teacher from one of the big six countries had to get on a plane, leave his or her family and go to some Third world country, live there and teach there, physically working and living in that location, for prolonged periods of time.....been there, done that too.

With the advent of the internet and e-learning, this whole exercise can now be conducted online. This means I can teach my Russian students and at the end of my lesson put down my earphones and still have a braai with my family here in sunny SA. To many that sound absolutely appealing; the best of both worlds. So to return to my point, mainstream South African educators, as they like to be called, can now teach their classes during the day and without leaving their employment, their families, their country, can still make a difference in the lives of others by teaching them English, whilst earning that much-needed cash, in order to survive.

Online tutoring

So your next question is: What do I need to do this?

Here is the Henry list

1. If you are not yet TEFL certified but have a degree, many schools will take you, but I would advise you get the TEFL. I have two as stated above. I would recommend the TQUK level 5 - 168-hour cert in TEFL with the TEFL Academy.
2. A laptop or desktop (Not a smartphone or tablet….there are some schools like Palfish who uses this tech, but not many). At least 2GB Ram and I would say your PC should not be older than 5-7 years.
3. Fibre internet or LTE Fixed wireless that ensures at least a 10 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload speed. I use 2 service providers, namely Telkom and Afrihost. If one is slow or giving problems I switch to the other. With load shedding issues in SA, it’s wise to get a charge box with your LTE Router which is good for 4-5 hours. In this case, it’s also probably better to use a laptop with a battery capacity of more than 2 hours. If you are a South African, you will know what I mean.
4. Proper headset. I use a Logitech headset used by people working in call centres. For ZAR 500 – 600, you can purchase it at PC stores like Incredible Connections.
5. Webcam – If your laptop does not have a built-in or working webcam or if you are using a desktop, you need to purchase an additional USB plug and play webcam.
6. General computer and internet, email and website literacy.  You need a general PC literacy and need to know how to troubleshoot basic tech issues.
7. PayPal account – Overseas Online Teaching Companies pay you via PayPal. Some companies use an alternative to PayPal, namely Payoneer (In this case you don’t need an FNB account, as a different system applies). You need to set up this PayPal account and connect it to your FNB account. Open an FNB account; It’s the only bank account in SA you can link your PayPal account to. The company pays your bi-monthly (most companies make a payment every 2 weeks) pay into your PayPal account. You then have to access Forex payments on your FNB online banking profile to first declare the money and then to withdraw it into your FNB account where you can access it in SA Rand. This process takes 2-4 days.
8. Skype account – You need to open up a Skype account. This is an important tool of communication with the company itself, as well as with students and fellow teachers. Most companies will add you to a teacher support group/forum on Skype. You will also most probably conduct your initial interviews and demo’s via Skype, so make sure you know how to use it. There are many YouTube tutorials on learning to use Skype. Also download and install the Skype app on your smartphone.
9. Smartphone - I would say your smartphone enables you to manage your communication and scheduling whilst you are not in front of your laptop, so good to have a good smartphone to manage your little ‘online business’ from. Remember, you would be working for yourself now in many respects and you need to manage your venture. You can have the exact same apps and functionalities on your smartphone than on your PC, so see it as a valuable extra tool.
10. WhatsApp and/or WeChat – This is another important tool of communication with the company, students and fellow online teachers. Download the apps on your phone, make sure how to use it and use it to communicate scheduling changes, queries, etc. Most Chinese companies, like Hujiang uses WeChat instead of Skype as its main tool of communication.
11. E-mail address – This is essential for corporate and formal communication with the company. Skyeng, my current Russian company, even opened a corporate email address for me, with their corporate branding and identity with which I must communicate with them and students.
12. Typing speed – You need to be able to type at least 30 wpm, in my opinion. I never had typing at school and I don’t type 90 wpm, but I would suggest you should not waste time looking for letters on your keyboard. You need this speed to type words/sentences/corrections/feedback in the virtual classroom itself or for grading purposes. There are online typing tutors that may help you to increase your speed if you are a novice, but I assume, unless you are 80, as a teacher, you have already spent some time in front of a PC, doing basic things. You need a general PC literacy and need to know how to troubleshoot basic tech issues.
13. Problem-solving skills.
14. Time management skills.
15. Social interaction skills.
16. Patience & Walking the extra mile.
17. Ability to build rapport!!!

What do you need?

Teaching online for a service provider vs teaching independently

You can either work for a company or school or you can be an independent online teacher. If you work for a school, you abide by their rules, structures, hourly rates, etc. The company, in this case, does all the marketing and match you as teacher in their database with students that suit your profile. The company supply the online virtual platform and classroom with pre-prepared structured lessons and do the scheduling on your behalf. They provide you with training, resources, and support. They pay you a fixed rate per hour after they probably deduct their share from what they receive from each of your students. This is a very secure and safe way to start as an online teacher, as you can be certain to expect a certain amount, depending on the number of hours you made yourself available for and how many hours you teach. If you teach 15 one hour lessons per week at 10 USD per lesson, you are certain to receive 150 USD per week and approximately 600 USD per month. You get this fixed rate and that is the ceiling.

Many experienced teachers, however, decide, after working for companies, that they would like to function independently. They want to have input or a choice as to what they teach and how they teach. They also prefer to determine their own rate. There are companies like Verbal planet and Italki, where online teachers can register a profile. Potential students can view your profile and can then approach you to teach them. Teachers can determine their own rates. The company takes its share and that’s how it makes its money, but they don’t offer you anything else like a virtual classroom with resources. You have to either create or purchase your own resources. Many teachers then use Skype as their teaching platform and create their own materials, determining their own rates. I’ve seen teachers asking up to 70 USD per hour. If you want to purchase your own virtual classroom with pre-prepared lessons, professionally developed by experts, Off2Class is a wonderful platform and resource provider.

The Dilemma: Working for others or for yourself?

Conclusion

Well, this was certainly a mouth full, and yet not the end of it. I suggest doing your own research. Join Facebook groups where online teachers give advice. Consider the cost, together with the potential earning potential. Consider if you have the right personality for this. Many people will feel uncomfortable interacting with others online; some will be naturals. I for one still prefer face-to-face interaction, but in my case, I have limited alternatives. One does, however, get used to it. If the technical side to it is freaking you out, then familiarise yourself with all the tools you will need to use. Consider starting small with 1 lesson per day, so that you won’t feel overwhelmed.

This is a fast growing billion dollars global industry, which has the potential to earn you that much needed extra cash in the South African context as a school teacher. Make sure you set things in place, and then start to apply for online teaching jobs that suit your personality and preferences. Research every company carefully, there are, as in every industry, companies out there that will pay very little and/or control you and suppress your teaching style. If you have a degree and TEFL certificate, there are well-paid jobs out there. It may take time and effort, but online EFL/ESL teaching has the potential to make your Rand stretch a bit further.

Learning can take place anywhere

Here is a list of some of the more well-known Online Teaching Companies to look at for online teaching jobs:

1. Cambly
2. 51 Talk
3. TutorABC
4. DaDaAbc
5. Skimatalk
6. i-tutorgroup
7. Lingoda
8. VIPkids

This list is not exhaustive, but will put you on the right track. Do your own Google search.