It is starting to appear as though the glory days of teaching online English could be coming to a close for some people. I am an ESL teacher just for a bit longer but during the various lockdowns and school closures I have been on half-pay and in order to make ends meet and to fill up my days I started teaching online. When I first started doing this it seemed like a dream come true.
- It was easy
- There were loads of employment options
- You can work when you feel like it
I'm afraid that things have become a bit more complicated and also difficult. The industry isn't dead yet, but it certainly has taken a step in the more difficult and less lucrative direction.
There are a lot of companies that teach ESL online as well as other things but the big 3 that the circles I run in are Whales, Preply, and iTutorGroup. I have in the past worked for all three of these companies and i still work for one of them on a part-time basis now.
However, two things have happened inside of all of these and many if not all of the others, in the past several months.
- Hours are being reduced for nearly all teachers
- The rate teachers are paid per hour has been dropping
People have a lot of theories as to why this is the case but the first one is probably a combination of there being a massive influx of new ESL teachers globally since many people strive to make some sort of remote-working income and also because the amount of customers is dropping. This is mainly due to China making dramatic changes to education policy.
China has now made it illegal to do an online tutoring session in anything for more than 30 minutes. They have also put a curfew at 9pm, and no tutoring is allowed on weekends, during school breaks, or public holidays.
China is, as you might expect, one of the major customers for almost all online ESL programs and this has put a serious dent in the amount of hours that teachers can possibly receive. Many of these companies are going bankrupt and I think more of them will fall as they kind of went "all in" and banked on the China industry.
This isn't really a big deal for me and I try to look at the bright side of things: I think that kids in Asia are put through far too much education and aren't allowed to be kids near enough. I'd like to believe that China (of all the places) wants children to be able to have a childhood and have real relationships with humans. I feel as though in Thailand and from what I have heard of other countries in Asia, kids are put under a tremendous amount of pressure to be involved in education from a very young age and it remains that way until they become professionals and the cycle continues when they end up having kids.
So if that is what is totally behind what is driving this then you could say that I am for it, even though it is negatively affecting my own wallet. I'm just surprised to see that it is China.
At the moment I know a bunch of people that are looking to Korea, Japan, or even Latin America for where they can teach some ESL but I'm afraid the days of it being easy to get involved in this online English-teaching job is probably behind us. I have seen my hours get cut in half in the past month and others that I know are experiencing the same.
I guess that is what happens when you see your customer base suddenly get halved overnight.
I suppose I am fortunate that I never depended on this for income and it was always just some "walkin' around money" for me. If you are or were thinking about getting involved in online ESL teaching. It might be a good time to think of something else :)