Thinking about becoming an online ESL teacher?

Part Three

So, the tedious and stressful experience of actually getting my company up and running was done, and now the rest would be easy, right? Oh so wrong! I was more than ready to get started but there was just a little something missing. My students. I needed to get my name out there, but financially, advertising wasn’t exactly in my budget at that point. I decided the only viable way to begin was by word of mouth. I had a few private lessons from my school teaching days and began there. However, it wasn’t until a dear friend of mine suggested Verbling (an online language learning platform that pairs individuals with language teachers via video chat) that things began to truly roll. The wonderful thing about Verbling was that it allowed students to find me, rather than me needing to find them. At a time when money was tight and my advertising knowledge close to zero, this seemed like the perfect fit. Once I created my profile, (complete with an introductory video) a steady stream of students started coming my way. Though the majority of students remained my students on the Verbling platform, there were quite a few who asked me whether I taught outside of the platform. It was these students who became some of the first official EEL students. Slowly but surely, those students recommended me to their friends and family and the rest is history! In all honesty, to this day, very little advertising actually takes place. I rely almost 100 percent on word of mouth. However, Verbling was a vital stepping stone and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity it provided me with. In subsequent posts, I’ll get into all the details of working for online language learning platforms, but for now, back to my story!

Those were EEL’s first baby steps into the world. It has taken a lot of time, hard work, dedication and passion to get to where we are today but it was without a doubt, worth it! As time went on, and my aspirations grew, so too did EEL. In addition to online ESL lessons, my husband and I eventually joined forces to become content creators (more about that later). Together we now also create teaching materials for the middle/high school ELA/ESL classroom. It is a relatively new chapter and one that we are extremely excited about. English Education Lab continues to change and grow as do we and we honestly can’t wait to see what happens next!