July 23, 2020

Thinking about becoming an online ESL teacher?

Part One

As an ELA/ESL teacher who had spent the majority of her adult life teaching in a physical classroom, moving into the world of online teaching felt like a massive leap into the unknown, and to some extent it truly was that. Alas, I’m jumping ahead-let me start at the beginning!

It was 2011, and at the age of 32 and after having gone through some of the most difficult years of my life, I made the monumental (to me) decision to move back to my home country of Greece. Though I had never lived there as an adult and had certainly never thought I would end up spending my life there, something inside of me simply knew that if I didn’t try to see whether it was a good fit, I would forever look back and wonder, “what if…?” A true “follow your heart” kind of gal, I packed my bags ready for the adventure ahead of me. It was the summer of 2011 and I found myself in Athens, Greece just a short year before the financial crisis hit in the country and all hell broke loose. That’s what I call perfect timing! I had spent the last four years in Amsterdam and the 10 years before that in Berlin teaching English at various schools and organizations and had loved every minute of it. My goal was to find a teaching job in Athens that I could be equally passionate about. I wasted no time in finding a teaching job and started working as a 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade ELA teacher in a private Greek school. It was an eye-opening experience for me for more than one reason.

To make a long story short, in order to make ends meet, working full-time at school while simultaneously doing multiple private lessons after work was a necessity. At the same time, I was struggling with health issues that made it very difficult for me to keep up with my incredibly rigorous schedule and time for myself was simply non-existent. Though I adored working with every single one of my 60 kids, I always felt as though I was shortchanging them in some way. Class sizes were much too large to be conducive to a healthy learning environment which meant that students were often either left behind or forced to move at a much slower pace than needed. I was often overworked, exhausted and on edge…I felt, as most teachers have at some point or another, that I owed each and every one of those students much more than I could ever give them in that kind of learning environment. The combination of all the above brought me to the realization that I was wearing myself thin and that I was going to burn out very soon. I knew there had to be a better way to find the balance I so needed in my life, both as an individual and as a teacher. I wanted to start something of my own to pour my creative energy, teaching passion and vision into, something that would afford me the balance I so needed. I wanted to create something that would help me bring the best of myself as a teacher to my students. Thus, was born the idea of English Education Lab, my very own online ESL teaching platform!

Stay tuned for part two of my story to find out how EEL’s first year went!

Take care friends,

Karolina