Summary

Teaching English online is challenging and not as easy or lucrative as often advertised, due to the need to exchange time for money, the importance of qualifications, and the difficulty in acquiring students.

Abstract

The article presents a critical view of teaching English online as a side hustle, contrary to the popular perception of it being an easy way to make money. The author, an experienced online English teacher, outlines three main challenges: the direct trade of time for money, which limits income potential; the necessity of having recognized qualifications like TEFL, CELTA, or DELTA, which can be costly and are not always valued equally by employers; and the significant difficulty in attracting and retaining students, especially in a saturated market with many teachers vying for opportunities. The author notes that while some platforms allow teachers to set their own rates, high competition and platform fees can be deterrents. Additionally, the article highlights that nationality can affect pay rates, with mother tongue speakers typically earning more, except for South Africans who may face discrimination. The conclusion suggests that while a few teachers do well, the majority make a modest living, and the market is currently oversaturated.

Opinions

The author disagrees with the notion that teaching English online is an easy side hustle.
Exchanging time for money is seen as a limitation because it caps earning potential.
Qualifications are important, but there is snobbery surrounding them, with CELTA and DELTA being viewed as superior to TEFL, despite not always making a practical difference in online teaching jobs.
Nationality can influence pay, with a bias against South African teachers.
Getting students is highly competitive and not guaranteed, even with a job offer from a company.
Platforms like Preply offer the chance to set one's own rates, but they take a percentage of the fees and competition is fierce.
The market for online English teaching is saturated, partly due to the closure of the Chinese market and the impact of COVID-19, making it a challenging field to enter and succeed in.

Is It Easy To Make Money Teaching English Online?

Teaching English online is a good side hustle.

At least that’s what a lot of posts say. I see a lot of articles & posts recommending English teaching as a good, easy online side hustle. But I have to disagree.

As an online English teacher myself I wouldn’t recommend it as a side hustle. Here’s 3 reasons why:

You are exchanging time for money.
Qualifications matter.
Getting students is no walk in the park.

Time For Money

You are exchanging your time for money, so your income is dependent on the number of hours you can work. If you are working for an established online school, your rates are fixed and not always very attractive. The days of great bonuses for performance etc. seem to have disappeared.

The hours that you want to work may not fit the market. To make it work you may have to get up at silly o’clock to even stand a chance of getting students.

Nationality Matters

Another thing that influences how much you get paid is your nationality. Mother tongue speakers earn more than second language speakers, except for South Africans. Schools seem to dislike South Africans; they also often pay them less than other mother tongue speakers.

Increasing Your Earnings

You can improve your hourly rate by working on a platform like Preply. With these platforms, you fix your own hourly rate and you pay the platform a percentage of your fees. But working on a platform is no picnic. There’s a huge amount of competition and some platform fees are very high.

If you manage to establish yourself, you can make more money by:

Offering group classes.

Providing video courses.

This all sounds good on paper, but the reality never lives up to the hype and there’s a mountain of hurdles to overcome before you even get started. Which brings me to the next point.

Qualified Or Unqualified?

If you have a recognised English language teaching certificate such as TEFL, CELTA, DELTA, you have a choice of where to apply for work. If you have no teaching qualification, then your choices are very, very, limited and pay is low.

There’s a lot of snobbery around qualifications. Most CELTA & DELTA teachers view their qualification to be superior to the TEFL qualification. Without doubt, they are more expensive.

To take a CELTA course expect to pay 1000–2500 Euros.

DELTA is a little more, running from around 2500 -3500 Euros.

Both have additional fees on top of that. They are both lengthy courses. DELTA is the equivalent of a degree. CELTA is not.

By comparison TEFL is cheap as chips especially if you do it online. There are lots of providers and you can pick up an online course for as little as 12 Euros.

Does it make a difference for working online? Not that I have noticed. Employers ask for a qualification. They don’t seem to be fussy about which one. As for students most don’t have a clue about what the qualifications are.

Getting Students

This is the biggest problem of all.

Even if you get offered a job with a company unless they are offering you regular fixed hours, there is no guarantee you will get students. You can be sitting around for months waiting to get booked.

Most schools use algorithms and they often push the new teachers a few lessons to get them started and hooked into the platform. And then you get nothing. You can spend weeks and weeks waiting, earning nothing at all.

If you’re on a platform, it’s the same thing. If you have to offer free sessions, you could spend weeks giving out free sessions and getting nothing back. Some students know how to play the system and it really doesn’t matter how good you are or how hard you try, they will not be signing up and paying you!

In Conclusion

Is teaching a good side hustle? Let me know what you think.

Can you make a living at it?

Most teachers make a modest living only a few do really well.

Is it worth doing?

Right now the market is saturated with online teachers. A lot of teachers lost their jobs when the Chinese market got closed down, add to that COVID and new people entering the market and you can see that it isn’t an easy gig.

Is there an upside?

Yes there is, but thats for another time.

I’ve been working online for many years and if you are thinking of starting up on your own buy me a coffee and I’ll tell you about how to get started and avoid the traps.

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