03/28/2023
hi Linda here from ITT back this week with another live session and and today
we're going to talk about how to become a freelance tefl teacher all right I
think this is a topic that a lot of people are going to find very interesting um a lot of people are probably going to
want to kind of follow in the in the footsteps of this
newer kind well is it a new career but I mean we've definitely seen some changes
in the teaching industry in the teaching Market um also thanks to the Boom in online
teaching and freelance teaching freelance English teaching has definitely become uh increasingly
popular for many different reasons many of these reasons we're gonna go into we're gonna go into
um what it actually means to be a tefl freelance teacher
um the benefits of it um also kind of the challenges and then
some tips how you can get started as a tefl freelance teacher
and um yeah I just want to start off by saying hi welcome thank you so much for
tuning in if you can see me and hear me and everything is working well here please leave a hi a hello in the
comments we are live on Facebook and on YouTube at the same time so please like leave a hi and where you're watching
from in the comment section I'm always very curious to know where are you right now where are you watching
from how are you doing I hope everybody's doing fine I'm in South Korea it is 10 30 a.m Friday morning and
yeah thanks so much for joining and tuning in and if you're listening to this as a podcast episode also thank you
so much for the download um as many of you know we always turn our live sessions into podcast episodes
so if you're interested um in the audio only format if you want
to listen to this um later on or you know upcoming episodes or past episodes if you want to
listen to them go to any major podcast platform so that is Google podcasts that
is iTunes Spotify um a bunch of other ones everywhere
where you can get podcasts you can go and type in the tefl and tesol podcast
by ITT and you will find find us there um so yeah thank you so much and so that
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we have oh is it soft it's off cool Hi how are you doing
I hope I'm saying that right uh xav says I'm Bart heading home to Dublin California San Francisco Bay Area
okay nice awesome how are you doing sounds awesome then we
have Angie here hi Angie how are you doing where are you watching from Angie oh it's off I'm sorry I'm sorry zoff
that's cool all right Daniel hey Linda how are you
great topic selection yay I thought that you would like that Daniel
awesome all right Angie from Chicago
that's cool okay what time is it there what time is it in Chicago
and we have is it Megan Megan yeah Megan ego worker
I hope I'm saying that right from Japan how are you doing Megan thanks for tuning in that's awesome
very very cool all right nice well I think we have some new
people here um so let me introduce myself so that you know who I am why I'm here
and she says it's a it's uh 8 34 p.m in Chicago We're originally from California
Orange County I just moved here oh cool how do you like it I bet it's very
different from California cool is it very windy
all right also before I introduce myself real quick we have 30 off today I always
share a 30 off discount code during our live sessions only during our live
session so that is very special um so you don't want to miss it if you're not yet tefl or T-cell certified
and you're like okay I'm ready to do this now take advantage don't pay full
price use this code 30 off so you can scan this QR code here
um or there's also a link and I'm going to share the link with you guys in the comments
here this is it it ends with FB live minus
Linda and you click on this link it will lead you straight to the application page so you can fill out this
application and this is no commitment right no commitment application you just fill this out and then you can pay later
as well that's fine and you when you click on this link you should see at the top it should say congratulations you
get 30 off something like that um so just keep that in mind and you uh you will see it there and
then you know it's the right link and you can save it you can apply later you can pay later whatever you want if
you're not yet ready if you don't know yet which course you want to take we have so many different course options so
I understand it can be overwhelming but also that's why I'm here so at the end
of today's session we we're actually going to have a q a session so you can
ask me your questions maybe about different course types you can kind of tell me your situation your background
and what you want to do and then I can recommend a suitable course for you as well so that's what that's what we can
do in the Q a session at the end you can also always uh email us if you
have questions and my team will get back to you and that email is courses at
tesall minus tefl.com so if you have any questions about ITT
about today's topic about anything related to our courses of course tefl
um if you want to know anything about that email us courses at teslines tefl.com and you can also if you want
reach out to me directly um for example a great way to do this is
via Instagram so here is my Instagram handle at Linda goes east and you can
just send me a DM with your question and I will try my best to answer it and get back to you
okay and Angie says very much is it like very much windy or you like it very much
or very much different probably that awesome I bet
um and then zoff says I'm curious about training my native Spanish speaking staff in English culinary
sorry about my poor typing I'm on the training commuting oh cool no problem
yeah okay so do you have a restaurant that's cool interesting that's very
Niche but yeah that's that's really cool I'm sure our courses our courses are
really for everybody for everything and everybody um so just real quick the basic course
that we have is for example that's the most popular course as well the 120 hour
course and this one really like basically teaches you how to teach so that's a good course to start with
that's what we always recommend and that is also the international standard for teaching jobs abroad so um that's a
great place to start and then from there we also have specialized courses unfortunately we don't have a course for
teaching culinary English that would be actually great and we should kind of we
should maybe get into that that'd be cool but we do have business English we have
um a course for teaching children and also teaching online but culinary
English not yet but there's an idea so that's great awesome and Megan says I already got ITT
tesol certificate but could I use this discount code for a 60-hour course as
well yes you can this this discount you can use for any course any course in our
website so feel free or uh yeah get a specialization one of the specialization
courses right teaching online teaching kids or business English that's what I would recommend in your case for sure
all right good good stuff so then a little bit about me
and I'm just gonna make this bigger so you can read the slide but my name is Linda and I'm a language teacher tefl
expert travel writer travel blogger uh content creator uh marketing person I do
many different things um so this is why I'm excited about this topic because I'm also a freelancer in
many different aspects and it's very exciting for me to talk about this today but
um my own personal website is lyndagozeast.com and also like I just
said my Instagram handle is Linda goes east and that is because I've been basically living in Asia for 10 11 years
um and I'm very interested in Asia my website is basically a platform for
people who want to travel to Asia you'll find travel guides on there and also information on how to teach in Asia for
example so if you're interested in that go check it out if Asia is also your thing
um I'm originally from Germany slash USA so my mom is German my dad is American and I'm based in South Korea this is my
eighth year in South Korea and before that I lived in China as well I actually
studied Chinese and that's why I was super interested in China mainly
um and I moved to China I worked in online marketing there but then I also started teaching English in
China um and then I went back to the states to
finish my degree and that's where I met my now husband who happened to be Korean
and that's how I ended up in Korea I actually did not know anything about Korea at all
um I was really focused on China China and then this guy comes shows up out of
nowhere and we hit it off and he's from Korea and that's how I ended up in Korea basically that's the short version of
the story um and so I knew that I wanted to go and teach English in Korea I wanted to move
there and so I was looking for a Teflon tesol course to take and after searching
for good options I found ITT and that stands for international Teflon tesol
training and um the website is tefl course.net uh and
ITT is a leading Teflon tesol course provider worldwide they have different lots of different courses
um and yeah I decided to take their course and that's how I ended up even working for ITT so you never know
what happens you never know what can happen endless opportunities with a tefl certificate there you go so that's
basically my story in a nutshell um and I'm in Korea since and I now that
pretty much all the countries are open again for traveling I'm also traveling a lot in Asia and other places so I'm very
excited about that so if you have any questions let me know feel free to reach out
um yeah I think that's it about me if you have any questions let me know in the
comments and then yeah we can kind of jump into today's topic so like I said
today we're gonna talk about how to become a freelance tefl teacher so we're
going to talk a little bit about what is a freelance tefl teacher um what are the challenges what are the
advantages the benefits why why should you become one or might it work for you
um and then a little bit about how to set it all up and how to get started and
then at the end like I said we have a q a session so you can ask me your questions and this should maybe take 30
to 45 minutes um you can always watch the replay if you don't have enough time now like zof
who's on who's commuting on a train uh maybe you can't watch everything so that's fine you can come back later we
always keep our um live sessions on our page Facebook page and also on YouTube
in a playlist so you can always refer to it and you can also if you watch the replay and you leave a comment
um we'll get back to you later as well on the comments so don't worry if you missed this if you're not watching it
live don't worry still comment and leave your questions and we'll get back to you anyway
um but yeah let's get into it let's start so freelance tefl teacher
let's see what is freelance teaching anyway for those of you who don't know
who are not familiar so the first thing is a freelancer of course is self-employed so a self-employed English
language teacher and that means rather than working for a specific school or a
Language Institute freelance tefl teachers they basically Market themselves directly to potential
students and this means you either have basically your own website or you uh
work through an online platform that connects you with students we're going to talk a little bit about that later
too or like I just said you have your own website or what a lot of people do nowadays you have your own social media
as well right we see this a lot on especially Tick Tock a lot of English teachers on Tick Tock and you can post
little videos um of you and reach an audience like that and of course a lot of people have
their own website right but basically that's what it is so self-employed is
the key word here and um what I also put here make your own schedule but just
flexibility you're not tied to one company you're self-employed so that's basically
that in a nutshell what freelance teaching is
um and so how is it different from working for an established company or
working for a school versus freelance tefl teachers so teachers for
um a school they're typically hired as employees and that means that you have a
contract fixed contract as an employee and you receive benefits oftentimes such
as health insurance also retirement plans are often included and also paid vacation time right with when you work
for a school this is also for teaching English obviously abroad you have a school contract right and you also
what's good about that is you get teaching materials lesson plans and also a curriculum handed to you so that is
all provided when you work for a school or an established company as an employee
so that's all good and great versus the freelance teachers where you don't
receive any benefits you don't really have paid time off um and you also may have to handle
administrative tasks such as invoicing and text filing on your own because you're self-employed you have to do
everything by yourself you have to write take care of that and also the insurance you're not going to have any
insurance you have to do that privately um so
you also as a freelance teacher versus where at a school you get your lesson plans you have a curriculum but as a
freelance tefl teacher you are responsible for creating your own teaching materials and lesson plans and
curriculum so that's basically the big difference between the two
um so you know there's not one right way to go with right A lot of people like
the comfort and the benefits of working at a school you get insurance you get
um you get benefits you get paid vacation or you pay into a retirement plan and also a lot of um
uh positions for teaching English abroad you also get paid housing Free Housing
right which is great so um that's a good point to work actually for a school and
for a company and versus a freelance teacher where you actually have to do everything yourself you don't have any
paid vacation right you basically work uh you make your own schedule you can
work when you work and have time off when you want to have time off which is also great so that is the big difference
here and let's have a look at the advantages though because there are many advantages
of being a freelance teacher um and I actually have five advantages
for you and the first one here of course is the flexibility right so freelance
tefl teachers have more control over their schedule and workload and you can
choose to work as many or as few hours as you like and you can often work from
home obviously or remotely and this is for freelance teachers who teach online
um maybe I should actually also say this so freelance teaching can be either you work online and this is more common that
you work online as a freelance teacher but you can also work in person like
teach in person classes as a freelance teacher so that's also possible um but then of course if you're doing
this uh in person and you are teaching if you want to move abroad and do this
as a freelance teacher you have to figure out things like Visa things on your own but there's actually a good
live session that I would recommend to you if you want to go down this route if you want to move abroad and do and still
be a freelance teacher right A lot of people want to do this now basically digital Nomad via digital Nomad a
digital Nomad teacher right so a lot of countries now especially in Europe and
also in the in South America Latin America the Caribbean but also in Asia
actually and Korea also recently introduced a digital Nomad Visa so a lot of countries are coming out with these
freelance digital Nomad visas which is super great for people who want to be
freelance teachers because I think um one of the big things and I'm just
going to make myself bigger here one of the big advantages of being a freelance teacher is to be able to work remotely
and work from home but I think a lot of people here who come to us who want to
take a Teflon a tesol course are actually looking to move abroad to teach right and these digital Nomad visas or
freelance worker visas that many countries are rolling out now
um combine the two um so you can have the best of both worlds you can live abroad and you can
work remotely as a teacher so that's why I think this is super great and a great
great opportunity for a lot of people out there and I did a live session about these digital Nomad visas in the past I
might have to do a new update video this was a few months ago and I think a lot of countries now in 2023 have new
digital Nomad visas so I might do an update video on that so
you know exactly where you could go to and be a freelance teacher online at the same time
because if you move abroad and are a freelance teacher you can teach online and you can also find a lot of students
for in-person classes right because these people for example if you move to Korea to be a freelance teacher you can
teach online and you can find so many students in person uh because the demand
for English language teaching is so big right so combine The Best of Both Worlds if
you want move abroad be on a remote worker freelancer digital Nomad visa and
be a freelance teacher work remotely work online so I think that's why
today's topic is so exciting there's so many opportunities that's the
thing sorry again that's the thing now tefl teaching I think is a lot more a
lot more you have a lot more opportunities um than a couple of years ago because of
this exciting freelance these exciting freelance remote working opportunities and Visas so before if you wanted to
teach English abroad basically you only your only option was to teach for a
company at a school and have an employee contract and then you have to go in you're tied you're not
a freelancer you don't have that flexibility but now thanks to these many new visas you actually have that
opportunity to do this also abroad in a different country all right
good so flexibility and I think flexibility is really the number one reason for somebody to start a career as
a freelance teacher right flexibility is great I also enjoy this the most
um I think I could never go back to office work or working full-time in a
school app I could ever so I love the flexibility and when I you
know when the weather is great um I can just go out for a walk if I want to or I can just go to the park for
an hour if I want to and come back um or yeah you're just flexible as a
freelancer and that's what I really love about it I think that's the biggest that's like the only reason you would really need
for me as an advantage of a freelance teacher um but also let's talk about the higher
earning potential and maybe a lot of people might think that this is actually not true that you might actually earn
less as a freelance teacher but that's actually not true you actually have higher earning potentials as a freelance
teacher because you can often charge higher rates
um then you would earn working for an established company or a school because
you can set your own rates first of all and you don't have to pay any commission so if you work on an online teaching
platform for one specific School online they usually take a commission out of your
paycheck but if you work independently as a freelance teacher uh you can set up
your own website your own rates you don't have to pay any commission to anybody which is really great and you
can earn more and also for in-person freelance teaching there's a story of this guy I don't know
him personally but he's a friend of a friend um also in Korea and basically he is a
freelance teacher but he does in-person teaching and because think about this if
you work for a school you have a set salary right a monthly salary so it doesn't matter actually how many classes
you teach um your salary obvious obviously is always the same but as a freelance
teacher you get paid by the hour usually right you could get paid by the hour so
uh the hourly rate is usually a lot higher per hour as a freelance teacher
then your salary is per hour on a normal teaching contract so there's this guy a
friend of a friend who is uh basically working the same hours as a full-time
teacher right like nine to five for example um and he has only freelance students
private students in person so he's charging his rate Which is higher than a
normal school hourly rate and he makes like seven thousand dollars
a month from that from working full-time doing only freelance teaching in person
because of the higher rate you can charge in Korea this is in Korea
um this was a couple years ago now might be different but um so yeah very different versus a
normal teaching salary in Korea would be like two and a half thousand two thousand two hundred two and a half
thousand and he is making serious Bank working as a freelance teacher because
you can charge so much more and you don't have a school attached to you so
that's really great uh yeah then also greater variety let's
talk about that part um as a freelance teacher this really allows you to work with a wider range of
students versus if you are in a school for example I used to work in an English speaking kindergarten so all of my
students were kids right kindergarten kids we also had some Elementary classes but that was it but now I can teach
children I can also teach adults at the same time I can teach whoever I want I can teach University students you can
pick your own students right and you can you can reach anybody um and the great thing about freelance
teaching online for example you can reach a global audience like you're
you're not tied to just your students in your uh physical vicinity in your school
you can reach anybody from any part of the world and that's really really a big Advantage
um so for me for example I teach online and I have a lot of students actually from Japan from China from other Asian
countries some also uh are Asian and they live for example in Germany because
I teach German also um so you can really Reach people from
all over the world so um yeah that's really great that's one great point so great variety
if you're like oh I really don't want to teach kids anymore I just want to teach adults you can do that as well
you have more flexibility in terms of your students range okay cool now I just
want to show a comment here here real quick from amitaba Hi how are you doing Amy Thomas says how are you faring now I
sincerely hope that you have recovered fully from your recent illness I almost I would say I'm like 90 okay now thank
you amitaba um so I had a really bad cold flu I guess and an ear infection I still have
a little bit like in my sinuses I think a little bit but that's about it everything else is really good and today
is my last day on medication so I should be fine thank you so much for asking I'm
I'm almost back to normal that's why sometimes I still have to cough today I apologize and I have to
drink a little bit more but other than that I'm doing pretty
good thank you amitaba okay great so here are three
three already let's cover two four advantages advantages of being a
freelance teacher uh one great Advantage also is the creativity okay as freelance
tefl teachers are responsible for creating their own materials and lesson plans they have the freedom to be
creative and tailor their teaching to their students needs whereas if you work
for a school or also an online school um you are tied to their curriculum
right um so you have to teach what they tell you you have to teach which sometimes might not be so fun or actually might
not actually be useful right for your students so if you are a freelance teacher as a freelance teacher you can
make your own material you can make your own curriculum what you think fits best
for your students and you can actually make it a lot more fun which I love so sometimes I for example I talk a lot
about recent events I have a lot of conversation students so we talk a lot
about recent events and news and things like that which is super great which you don't really have in a normal school
setting um depending I mean on the school but typically it's just always grammar and
reading and not a lot of speaking I think in most schools but anyway
um or what I also sometimes did with my students or sometimes do with my students I go over like
um holidays for example today's St Patrick's Day so you could have a lesson on St Patrick's Day
um you can have an Easter themed lesson Christmas of course all of these things or you can do something like black
history month or you know about um history whatever you students are into
and what you're into so you can literally do whatever you want and this is also a great way to kind of find your
Niche and um stand out from other teachers if you offer like these really interesting
special lessons you can reach a lot of students
um and you can stand out from regular teachers because you're doing something different and fun
um yeah then we have the autonomy so of course that's something we already talked a little bit about so freelance
teachers have the freedom to make their own decisions about how they want to teach something that we just talked
about and they are not bound by a specific curriculum or any other restrictions so other restrictions some
schools of course they would have restrictions um what you can and can't do also of
course maybe dress codes and things like that think about that um right and when you have your lunch
break and all of those things so as a freelance teacher you don't have to worry about any of those things and also
fines so with a lot of online schools there are fines for example if you
cancel a class too late or if you don't have enough students some
platforms some online schools actually need you to teach minimum amount of hours and if you don't hit your target
you're going to get fined and all of those things so as a freelance teacher you don't have to worry about any of these things you're completely free you
have autonomy you're basically your own boss which is really great
so these are the five biggest advantages in my opinion of being a freelance teacher and certainly something that I
also think is true and that I enjoy and so I wanted to share these with you guys
um if you have any other advantages here you want to add to this list feel free to leave that in the comments and also
maybe hear question real quick is any one of you a freelance teacher already let me know
let me know in the comments any one of you teaching already freelance or who is seriously interested here in teaching uh
English as a freelancer let me know I'm sure many of you are because you're here and you're watching this so I appreciate
that um but yeah is that an option for you let me know
and like I said now with these many remote worker and digital Nomad visas this is really uh it opens up so many
opportunities because you can live abroad and You Can Be Your Own Boss as a freelance teacher which is so so great
all right Megan says yes yeah right you are already a teacher anyway awesome
cool so maybe you can give some tips here is
there Megan is there any uh any advantage you would like to add here that I might have missed or maybe later
you can share some of your um some of your insights
Angie says I want to be a freelancer or just don't know how to start okay we're gonna cover how to start in just a
minute I think maybe right after this slide actually so stay tuned this is coming up
all right Megan says I am a freelance teacher and this is the second year it is so hard to schedule oh that's a good
point right it's yeah that's maybe a disadvantage or maybe just a challenge
let's call it a challenge you need to really schedule you need to have you need to be on top of things right when
do I have what student when do I need to have time you know for for lesson
planning all those things so yeah um when I started working
remotely and as a freelancer it took me a couple of weeks or maybe months really
to get into a routine um it's not that easy in the beginning
um so I definitely understand that but I think it takes time but you said this is the second year
um but it sounds like because it's hard to schedule you have a lot of students that's awesome
um but yeah I agree it is not always easy sometimes it is easier when you have a boss who
tells you what to do but then when you are the boss you have to figure out everything um sometimes it can be a challenge for
sure um great let's have a look at next oh yeah perfect Angie here here you go how
to get started how to get started okay so this one the right setup this is
actually for online freelance teachers so um just be aware of that basically to get
started as an online freelance teacher you need to have of course a reliable computer that is very important you need
also you also need to have a excuse me a high quality webcam but of
course nowadays all laptops computers well computers not so much but laptops
if you have a laptop have webcams right if you don't um you have to get one
uh also a headset with a microphone is always good like the girl here in the
picture has a headset with Mike um that's always really good for especially as a language teacher you
just want to make sure your students um get the best sound as possible for pronunciation for understanding you
clearly so that's really important um and then of course a stable internet
connection is very important and a temple certification actually will
also help you so this will not only help you because a tefl course teaches you how to teach so you actually know what
you're doing and you learn a lot of techniques and things like that but a
tefl certification will also help you in getting students because when they see you are certified you are an actual
teacher they're more likely to book a class with you where whereas if you don't have anything at all why you know
what there's nothing that says to them you know what you're doing you know what I mean so a tefl certification
definitely helps and it's great to have and showcase on your website freelance website or on your freelance like
profile um so that's always a good idea uh maybe quickly if you want to be a
freelance teacher uh in a different country then obviously it's the same
setup if you're teaching English online but if you're not teaching online uh you
would uh and you want to move abroad but do private tutoring freelancing like that you
um will figure need to figure out first the Visa situation so you can pick a
place where they have remote worker visas and things like that but this really depends and varies from country
to Country so I can't really give you a list now but like I said I did a live
session about that in the past so go and check that out about digital
Nomad visas and I might do an update because I think this year um a lot of new visas have come out for
digital Nomads and remote workers so I'm gonna check that out and then probably
do an update um and then we're also going to talk about how to create online lessons which
is very important because as we said as a freelance teacher you need to do that on your own and then also how to find
students because that's what's the most important as a freelance teacher how do you actually find students uh to get
started to get teaching and to earn money right all right B1 says a freelancer has to be
very self-disciplined yeah absolutely absolutely but I think that's a skill
that anybody can learn uh because if you don't work you don't get any
money if you don't have any money you can't pay rent you can't pay for food so that's a very good
um motivator right there I think you need to get money so you need to work
and to work you need to be disciplined I don't know I hope that makes sense
okay and Angie says yes I have a I have tesol and t e y l certification okay I'm
a lot more interested in China since my husband is Chinese well perfect so this
is also something something that I did obviously my husband is Korean so uh you
can probably move to China if you wanted to and have a Visa because your husband
is Chinese you can get a Visa so you can set this up in China right very easily
so that's that's also how I started I well actually not how I started I
started with working for school not freelance with contract with the school Visa through the school and then we got
married and I changed my Visa and this allowed me really to freelance
um and get that going but now I have a basically like a green card for Korea
um and I'm I can also work freelance with this Visa but that's what a lot of people are
doing a lot of people who have foreign spouses right you can move to your spouse's country and be an English
teacher there freelance also because you have this Visa many people can get a spousal Visa
so um this allows you to live and work there as well so that's really cool
all right yep then let's talk about how to create online lessons so of course as
we already talked about creating lesson plans for your lessons is an essential
part of teaching as a freelance tefl teacher you can't just have students that book a class and then turn on your
computer and just wing it it doesn't work that way you need to have a plan
um so these plans will really help you organize your teaching materials and your lesson content and they obviously
will make your lessons more structured and effective and pre-made lesson plans will also save you time because you know
exactly what you're doing and um you can use these for other students
and it saves you time and you can use this time to find more students or to
improve your teaching skills or just do more of what you like to do
in your free time so uh yeah this is all about creating online lessons
and I think I have some tips for you or is this yeah exactly perfect so tips for
your online lesson plan and also maybe before we go into this but this is what I wanted to say uh your tefl course will
teach you how to lesson plan so if you take a tefl course you will already know oh this is how you make a lesson plan
from A to Z we cover everything how to make a lesson plan so this will help you
immensely you're not going to start from zero after taking a tefl course you know exactly what to do and then you can jump
into here so this is the first tip that I have here use the esa method even for
teaching English online if you're not sure what is the esa method or Esa methodology this is what you learn in
your tefl course this is a super effective and useful teaching
methodology that stands for engage study and activate so these are three phases every
lesson should have basically uh and if you follow this method and follow this
structure your lessons will be very successful and this also goes for online lessons
uh so then you would choose a platform this is again for teaching English
online you have to choose a platform how will you teach you need an online whiteboard basically and my tip here for
you is my row this is also what I use this is a really great uh online
whiteboard it has so many features so many things you can embed videos you can
create like full-on board games in there of course you can you can write on it uh
type text um create all kinds of arrows and pictures and you can also give your
students access to it so they can also do this at the same time uh it's super useful it's it's so
it has so many features it's incredible so Myro is my favorite and it's also free you can create three white boards
for free on a free plan uh Myro so check it out uh if this is maybe too much or
too complicated you can always just use Google Sheets uh so that's also good Google Sheets of
or Google Docs I think I actually wanted to say Google Docs not Google Sheets you can also use Google Sheets but I think I
meant to say actually Google Docs right uh this is great for documents I also use this for homework usually have my
students write their homework in a Google doc right uh and then you can
also at the same time go through it and edit it and all that then we have canva canva is also great
um another great tool canva is great for creating uh lesson material work
materials worksheets um but they also recently introduced
their own whiteboard online board feature so you can also check it out
canva also free they have a pro version but I think to use the Whiteboard and
everything it is free and also this presentation here is also made in here I
also made this I always make all of my presentations and stuff in canva as well so it's a good tool to have
and then another one I recently discovered is called off to class so off to class
uh they actually are a super comprehensive online here what here it
says off to class is the ESL teacher toolkit that saves time and drives Equitable English learner outcomes so I
think they basically have uh you can have your lessons in their
platform I believe and you can also they have lesson content already so they you
can pick from their lessons you can also assign homework via this platform you
can also do placement tests and assessments all in one platform so
if you're maybe not if you're just starting out you're not sure what you're doing you can use off the class
I think uh yeah and I actually wanted to uh check it out too I'm gonna check it
out and maybe report back to you guys how I like it
um it is free I think they have a trial a free trial but after that you have to
pay for it but it might be just worth it yeah free account for individuals
teachers here okay great so for individual teachers freelance teachers you can have 20 students
150 lessons and 20 placement tests so that is pretty cool
and then after that it's actually really cheap their cheapest plan is eight dollars a month for two students
okay and then the more students you need the more you have to pay but this might be a really good solution for first time
online teachers so that might be really cool and then also teaching material
resources teaching material what to teach actually right uh you can of
course write your own your own lessons your own like uh worksheets and all that but that takes a
lot of time so you wanna and you're not getting paid for uh lesson prep so you
want to minimize the lesson prep as much as possible what I like to use personally I use a lot of Pinterest you
can go on Pinterest and then type in literally anything like simple past worksheet or something like that and you
will find something and you can use that print it out use it or use it online right
um I also really like BBC six minute English like I said I do a lot of conversation classes so BBC six minute
English is from the BBC British uh English and they uh have podcasts so
this is a podcast and I think they come out with a new episode every week six
minutes super quick um and they teach people I think six or seven new vocabulary words every time
and you can kind I structure my conversation classes around this this is
for British English you can check it out BBC six minute English might work for you they also have a American English
version which is below here uh VOA news.com they also have podcasts with vocabulary
and sometimes they also include like grammar bits so this is really nice for conversation classes and then the other
three resources below here so we have teachingenglish.org dot UK and this is
from the British Council uh lingua house and then we have online English teaching.com uh
these are all great websites for teaching materials so worksheets or just
like grammar explanations whole lessons all of this you can find that on there
they're also really really good for free as well uh okay let me check in real
quick with Megan Megan says I'm going to teach now I definitely watched this video later so see you soon thank you
Linda thank you Megan have a great day have a good class then we have ahava Hi ahava how are you
doing ahava asks will this life be recorded and available to watch again yes yes all
of our live sessions they will remain on our Facebook page we have a playlist on there and also I see you're watching on
YouTube so we also have a playlist of all of our live videos on YouTube as
well so you can re-watch this if you don't have time now watch it later no problem it will be there
thank you Sam Hi Sam oh I didn't see your good morning Hi Sam how are you doing thanks for saying that the lights
are uploaded to their YouTube channel yes they are thanks Sam all right so this is tips for your
online lesson plan right how to create your lessons
uh oh maybe also a good way how I always start when I have a new student what I
do I usually give them like a level test and you can also find them on Google you type in English
maybe uh level tests for kids or level tests for adults and there are so many
different options so you can pick a level test and sometimes I give that to them before
the first lesson and have a complete have them completed and then send it back to me and then I check and then I
can see oh yeah this is like where they're at their current level and then I can obviously make a lesson based on
their level so I always I always recommend doing that first having a level test first so
you know uh where they are in their language journey and you can find these like I said on Google you can just type
this in English level test Etc uh yep
oh Daniel asks where are you teacher the country I am in South Korea I'm in South
Korea Daniel where are you at let me know good okay and then we're going to talk about
how to find students uh oh I didn't change the text here
that's the same text from the lesson plans anyway so ignore this text uh finding
students of course is the most important I'm just gonna make myself bigger finding students is of course key to a
successful uh freelance career right we need students to teach so how do we find
them and there's so many different ways you can actually find students um and we're gonna go over them right
now so first if you really don't have any idea where to start you can always start
with friends and family so you can start by reaching out to friends and family uh
who might know someone interested in learning English because word of mouth is an excellent way to find potential
students so you might be surprised just let your family and friends know hey I'm starting to teach English now and they
might know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody you know how it goes and then
um this is guaranteed you're gonna get a student from there because people like
uh right having like Word of Mouth people trust their friends and their family so
they're more likely to recommend you to like their friend right so if you don't know where to start at
all start with your friends and family then we have tutoring kids and teenagers so there's a high demand for English
tutors among children and teenagers so you can start by offering your services to Local Schools or by advertising your
services to parents so this one would work especially well uh of course in a
non-uh English-speaking country right if you're already abroad somewhere and
you want to start teaching English online reach out to local schools and let them know
for example here I have a little in my in my building complex here we have a
kindergarten and I always think oh if I if I really if I need like another job
if I want to get another like student base perhaps I could just go down there and tell them hey I'm here I'm available
if I should come in like once a week for English story time or something uh that
would be great and I guarantee you that shows great initiative and people are really more inclined to um reach out
also schools they usually have online like whiteboards no blackboards what are
they called boards information boards uh where you can put up your Flyers your
information also in the physical school or just in the school area
um so that'd be great and then of course we have teaching foreigners I think this is the most interesting to all of us
right you can teach English to foreigners in your local community or online so local community if you are in
an English-speaking country and you are looking
to stay in your English-speaking country but you're looking to teach English you can find foreigners living in uh
non-english speakers living in your community um and then of course online if you
don't want to leave your country you're from an English-speaking country you don't want to leave your country you can always start out with teaching English
online of course um or of course like I said if you want to
move abroad uh for example you move to China you move to Korea you move to Mexico wherever of course there will be
many many potential students who want to learn English but for online there are various websites where you can find
potential students such as italki or pre-ply um and these are online teaching
marketplaces so that's a big difference um just something to keep in mind so
their online teaching marketplaces basically where you can put up your profile
your teacher profile this is who I am this is what I teach these are my skills this is my price these are my lessons
and then they can browse profiles and they can book you so this is also a great way this is also what I do whereas
online teaching schools or online teaching platforms they uh basically
assign the students to you oftentimes and they give you the material they have
a set pay rate you cannot set your own price they give you uh they tell you hey
this is our like hourly rate and you have to take it you can't set your own
price um so that's the difference you want to choose a online teaching Marketplace for
that then we also have of course social media networking this is something we talked
about in the beginning but you can use social media platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn to network with potential
students and here especially joining groups or Pages related to English
language learning can help you connect with students who are interested in learning English so you're going to see
this a lot there's so many groups on Facebook on LinkedIn
um in different forums you can find groups and connect I also hear telegram
is super popular where a lot of teachers share stuff and connect with students so
social media or like what we talked about creating your own Tick Tock profile if you're into that and start
you know posting and sharing like English teaching tips things like that and then you can gain followers and find
students through that that's an option uh more old-fashioned
way you can just post Flyers around town that also works and Ice that also happens a lot in Korea you see a lot of
Flyers out on the street or in elevators a lot of teachers advertise there so you
can create actual flyers and post them in your local community such as cafes coffee shops libraries community centers
and make sure to include your contact information of course and just a brief description of your services what you
offer maybe even a picture of yourself and like a picture of yourself holding your tefl certificate that would be
great um so that can go a long way and you can also promote yourself through ads so you
can promote your teaching Services by advertising in local newspapers so if you're moving abroad or also in your own
country local newspapers magazines or online classifieds and also if you have
your own website if you create your own website for teaching you can use Google ads to reach a global audience
so these are some really great ways on how you can find students and I would recommend you know not just sticking to
one way but kind of pick more than one uh you don't have to do all of them some
people like the social media side of things I think Daniel wanted to start their his own uh his own uh tick tock
uh some people might not like that right depends on what you want to do also some
countries the Flyers like I said in Korea there are a lot of flyer advertisements so this works really well
but in some other countries it might not be really that common people might not really use it like or advertise this way
so you can figure it out um so yeah these are some really great ways so again we have first of all
friends and family tutoring kids and teenagers Local Schools uh foreigners if
you're in a English-speaking country you can find foreign communities social media networking then we have old
school posting flyers and just promotion through ads old school newspapers or magazines but also online classifieds
and Google ads so a lot of options on how you can build your freelance
business so let's recap we are at the end let's recap I have five most important points
from today what I want you to remember what I want you to take away from today number one becoming a freelance tefl
teacher requires proper certification and training why of course not
officially anybody can start doing this but to really get students and to really be successful you need to have some kind
of certification to show to your students right so a tefl
certificate really shows them that you learned all the skills to teach so you're able to deliver effective lessons
and they can actually learn something from you um also if you're a non-native English
speaker any kind of English language proficiency certificates like an IELTS a
tefl any Cambridge English language certificate are great to add on to your
portfolio um then number two here you have a higher earning potential more
flexibility and more diverse teaching opportunities as a freelance teacher
right higher earning potential because you can set your own rates more flexibility you're not tied to a nine to
five schedule you can work whenever you want if you like working at night you could even just work and teach all night
if you wanted to and more diverse teaching opportunities you can teach whatever you want you can
make your own lessons and you can reach whatever kind of student you want all over the world all age groups everything
however if you want to teach online freelance online what you need to have is a reliable computer and internet
connection a headset with a microphone and of course good lesson plans good
lesson plans are the base of your freelance business um you can find students through social
media reaching out to friends and family and promoting through ads Word of Mouth many different ways right word of mouth
goes a long way even online word or mouth right you're if you have an online student and they tell their friends
about you then they also might want to book you so word of mouth is really gold in this business
and number five here to successfully freelance as a tefl teacher it's
important to continuously develop one's skills and knowledge and this is something I haven't touched on yet but
of course it's always important to stay up to date um also with maybe the teaching
platforms that you use like I said I just discovered this new off to class platform I'm gonna check it out I need
to know what's hot and new in the industry and also like we talked about
there are tefl specialization courses so when the teaching English online tefl
specialization came out and I knew I wanted to teach English online I also got that specialization
um but even just free for free you can find a lot of free information on
websites for online teaching to just kind of stay up to date and uh see what's what and I think this is it if
somebody wants to add something here to this list if I forgot something uh from someone who is already freelance
teaching or an important point that I mentioned and you guys didn't understand what I was saying please let me know and
then I will elaborate on that but I think this is the most important stuff you need to know if you want to start
freelancing online but also in a different country
um of course today there was a lot more focus on the online side because um freelancing in a different country
it's really going to depend on the Visa situation but like I said there are more and more countries introducing freelance
and remote remote work visas and I did a live session about that in the past so
go and check it out and I might do an update on that because I think this year also a lot of countries introduced new
remote worker Visas so we're going to see that and um yeah then let's go into q a right now
and just real quick I want to share this code with you guys again so we have 30
off any tefler T Cell course with ITT you can scan this QR code but I also
have a website link for you guys if you can't scan this uh you can just copy
paste this link it will lead you to the application page and you see congratulations 30 off your tefl tesl
course from ITT so this is it looks like this ends with FB live minus Linda this
is the code no the link this is the QR code so whatever you want to do you can
do it and then I still have a couple of minutes here for Q a let's give it a couple more
minutes uh we are in one hour and three minutes now but uh
yeah I can stay on for a little bit longer today my throat is okay so I don't need to cut this short today it's
fine so let me know what are your questions maybe about today's topic but also about
tefl tesol in general about our courses about ITT whatever you want to know now
is your chance to ask uh and I'll do my best in answering I
also I want to say I don't know everything right but I I'll try my best and you can always and this is what I
mentioned before you can always contact us at courses at tesl minus tefl.com
and my team we have a great team of people who all have taught English
abroad and have a lot of experience and so they I'm sure one of them will be
able to answer your questions if I can't so great Sam says how was Vietnam yeah so I
was in Vietnam when was it two weeks ago two weekends ago I was in Vietnam it was
amazing it was really great but after that I got sick I think because it was very warm there it was
still cold in Korea but in Vietnam it was very warm um and then the AC was on of course and
then I think the flight back home really that's what really hurt my ear and I got an ear infection and the cold after that
and um two weeks later I'm still I'm finally better now but I did get sick
but Vietnam was amazing we were in Hoi An uh this was our second time there me
and my husband and it was just so great and I was like oh I could move here I
could teach here too I could freelance teach and just sit at a different Cafe every day in this beautiful Town it was
it was great so highly recommend if you haven't been yet to Vietnam or Hoi An in a particular
I highly recommended it was amazing absolutely gorgeous and you can see all about my trip on my
Instagram at Linda goes east if you're curious and I guess Sam might have
seen that on my Instagram so I appreciate it thanks Sam
Vietnam is also a good destination for teaching English there's a high demand
do you also have a lot of schools that are looking for teachers um oh I need to check if they have like
a Vietnam remote worker visa if they have something like this that would be amazing
okay here it says uh Vietnam is a great destination for many digital Nomads that
said it does not have a Visa available specifically for remote workers
but that doesn't mean there aren't options for digital Nomads to visit Vietnam for a long period of time all
right there you go so I assume you can just do it on
um a tourist visa I think that's what a lot of people do here
so or there in Vietnam but yeah
um Angie says I'm confused about how taxes work as a freelancer yeah so
that's one thing of course that is confusing and that's something that you have to figure out on your own and I
assume you are a U.S citizen because you are from California living in Chicago so
you need to file your own taxes um and there are actually also for uh
there are a lot of groups actually on Facebook I've seen them for this kind of situation where they uh basically other
people help you with it you can also hire somebody to help you with it there are agencies to do it for you
um or just yeah Join one of those groups and they will walk you through how to do
it how to file the taxes but that's something yeah you have to do on your own and figure it out
but it's not impossible a lot of other people are doing it too so um it just I think
the first time you're doing it it might be hard but like I said there are a lot of support groups
um that will help you with that yeah all right B Hong says do you think it's
a good idea to start teaching with an online company so like with a different online company
yeah I think especially uh as a first time if you're completely new to
teaching online and all of that I think it's good to start out with a company just to kind of see how it works
um you know how to to see like how the students are how online teaching
Works um what kind of material they use so you could do this
for a little bit and then just quit and then do it on your own that's also possible
I think it's good to start out with and just to reach students right because these online platforms that's the big
advantage of going with an online platform that they uh have the students
you don't have to actually reach out to any students who don't have to do any of the marketing stuff because they already
have the students um so if you're starting out this might
be a good way but those platforms they will take a commission so not so great but to start out with I
think it's really good and then once you kind of get the hang of it and you have like a portfolio you have experience and
you have something to show you can do it on your own and make more money
good question that's a good question you know there's no there's no perfect
answer for this this is just my opinion um you can also just start out with completely on your own but
because for me because I had no experience in teaching online and I started out with an online company and
that really helped me because I learned a lot how everything works in this online teaching world
um so yeah and now I still I'm still on the platform so I still have a couple of students because like I like these
people so I don't want to like abandon them so I keep teaching but I I there on my
platform where I teach there's this function where you're you can say like you don't want to accept any new
students so they don't really put you in the search so you keep your regular students but no one new reaches out to
you that makes sense so I just have like a handful of regular people but I'm not taking on any new ones
um so it's a lot more quiet on the platform and I have more time to focus on my own freelance stuff so that's very
good and that's also the good thing with
these platforms because you um you uh you can decide how much you want
to work right if oh now you have more time you can take on more students but then later on I have less time now so
you can narrow down your schedule good question so Sam says can you teach
online while you're still working with a school or institution
um so that depends if I think uh it depends what your contract says you have
to read your contract if you are in a teaching in a school and your contract
says oftentimes your contract will say that you cannot work somewhere else or something like that I
don't know like the official term but your contract will say something to that effect uh
but I mean a lot of people are doing it and
how would your school find out if you teach online uh you know
people from other countries there is very little chance your school would actually find out and if they found out
they probably wouldn't be mad as long as you know you're not taking their students so that's what they don't want
right they don't want you teaching their students in the free in your free time and taking their students away from them
so as long as you're not doing that they're normally cool with it and you
can also just ask um you know you can ask them hey I would like to start teaching online in my free
time and they're like oh yeah just do it I don't think anybody would say no as long as you're not taking their students
right and losing them money because it's a business right it's a business these private language schools are businesses
so they don't want to lose any money but you teaching online a couple of hours a week students from a
different part of the world I don't think is going to matter to them but uh yeah it depends on the contract
so read your contract what it says regarding other jobs and then you can figure it out with your employer
I hope that makes sense um but if you are a freelancer and you
work you know for different clients different platforms you can certainly have more than one right
that's what most Freelancers are doing they don't have just one job right they have many different jobs so that there
definitely is possible but if you have like one con you're an employee at a
school it's a little bit different so I hope that makes sense
good question though that's a good question all right let's see uh let's do like one
or two more questions if you have any and then I'm I have to say goodbye unfortunately very soon so let's see
last chance now to ask a question send them in real quick and we can answer it
but then I have to go real quick in a minute
hmm or maybe everybody's happy no more
questions that's also fine all good oh I missed this too Sam Sam
said yes yes I did your Instagram is awesome oh thank you thank you Sam
that's kind of you and Jesus how often do you make lives yeah we go live every week usually at
this time this day same same every week unless uh
I'm like not here so but usually same place same time so
like And subscribe so you're notified and you're not gonna miss it great question thank you Angie I hope to
see you again next week I'll be here next week again I hope you too
all right then I think I'm gonna say goodbye now Angie says thanks today was awesome well
I'm glad things great I hope you learned something awesome
oh also if you guys have any topics suggestions for future life sessions you
can send them in you can comment um you can also DM me like I said here on Instagram if there's like a topic you
want me to cover in the future I always take suggestions so let me know about that and amitaba
I mean Tava says okay Lynette thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a nice day and weekend thank you same to all of
you have a great weekend have a wonderful rest of your week um have a great St Patrick's Day if you're celebrating and um yeah oh let Turk is here too hi The Turk thanks so
much Linda happy weekend thank you Sam says thank you catch you in the life
thank you Sam I hope you'll be there see you all next week hopefully and have a
great weekend and thanks so much for all of your comments and questions it was really great and um yeah I'm looking
forward to next week thank you guys see ya bye
