My Daily Schedule as an Online ESL Tutor (during COVID-19)
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Introduction
Covid-19 has, at this point, probably affected everyone in some way, whether we realize it or not. For me, it has given me time to rest, recover, and grow my finances before beginning university in the fall. When I got back to America, my first priority was to get a job because I hadn’t had one in nearly two years. This was, of course, because of my chronic illness and you’ll be able to learn more about that in my first-ever podcast episode (not yet available on Apple Podcasts, but it will be soon). Today, I don’t want to talk about what I used to do or why I took a break from working. I just want to talk about what my life looks like, now, and share a couple of helpful resources with you for anyone interested in working online (particularly as an ESL tutor).
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The Weekly Rundown
I work every day except Wednesdays and Sundays so I can have a little bit of a break to rest before getting back into tutoring. Fingers crossed, I’ll be able to cut-out Friday when university starts. Most days I teach for about three hours at the most so I have plenty of time to prepare material and, again, rest as much as possible. This means that right now, I am making about $100 a week. I know that’s not a lot, but it is for me (compared to $0). I, personally, don’t have a goal to start teaching any more hours than I am now, but, honestly, I could if I wanted to. Thankfully, I’ve received a number of scholarships, so all of the money I’m making now will be going towards things like food, travel, blogging, savings, and other extras when I’m in college.
Morning
Every morning I get out of bed around 9 AM to start eating, take my meds, and get ready for the day. About an hour later, I begin prepping for the lessons I’ll be teaching later on in the day (I usually start the bigger projects the night before, but most of my lessons are strictly conversational). Some people may say that I need to be prepared at least a week in advance, but this helps me to keep the material I’ll be using throughout my lessons fresh in my mind. Otherwise, I’ll forget and it will become an organized mess. This usually takes an hour of fine-tuning and I am ready to go. At this point, I still have an hour before lessons, so I eat lunch, finish getting dressed, relax, and/or do some work on my blog.
Afternoon
I start teaching most days at 12 or 12:30 PM. Each lesson is an hour long and I begin with some small talk before jumping into that lesson’s focus. I finish around 3 or 3:30 most days but I do have one day where I am teaching until 4:30. I have created my own office with a desk that I push around to get the best lighting (AKA smack dab center of an old bedroom). I even have a hot pink office light positioned on the edge of a bed for an even better effect, haha. I tried my best to spend as little money as I could on this because the goal is for me to make money, not lose it.
Evening
After I finish teaching, I fill out lesson summaries for all of my students and answer any questions they might have asked after our lesson. Then, I try to relax until dinner so I can recover (chronic fatigue wise) from work. Let’s just that doesn’t always work and I usually end up working on my blog. It’s bad for me, I know, I just can’t help it. Writing and blogging have become my strange addiction!
Night
When night rolls around, I’m usually pretty exhausted so I might watch TV or make teaching materials (only if I can’t help it). I put on my retainer, get ready for bed, take my meds and sleep! I know it’s pretty uneventful, but this is so much better than doing nothing during the pandemic.
The Best Resources for ESL Tutors
For anyone interested in knowing how to start working as a freelance ESL tutor, these are my resources. Most of them only apply to teaching English but some of them can be used for any kind of freelance/online/tutoring work. I am by no means an expert on online tutoring. However, in my first two months of working online and teaching English as a second language. I have learned a whole lot.
1. Becoming TEFL Certified
If you don’t know what TEFL stands for, know that it will be the first of money acronyms you will come across and it means Teaching English as a Foreign Language. More and more people are getting phony certifications that don’t actually help them when it comes to being an ESL Tutor online or anywhere else. So, here are my top three choices for getting a TEFL certification that will actually help you ranked in order of least expensive to most expensive.
I-to-I TEFL
When I became certified, I did so with I-to-I and got the Level 3 120 hour TEFL certificate. Basically, there are two levels but they don’t actually mean anything outside of the UK (as far as I can tell, only British companies use this system). No matter which level you get, you will still be able to find jobs. I chose Level 3 because it was the cheapest. I-to-I courses are a little pricey, but they run so many sales that you can easily save tons of money on courses. Mine was only $100 dollars. You can also purchase add-ons for online teaching, IELTS coaching, and more.
Let’s TEFL*
When on sale Let’s TEFL is a little bit more expensive than I-to-I. This is because they only sell one course and within that course everything is included. Here’s what I mean. Not only do you learn about TEFL basics but they’ve also included an online teaching video guide, lifetime job placement service, a free employment training course, live chat with experienced tutors, and have even received high reviews from major platforms like GoAbroad! This is also the perfect course for non-native speakers who want to start teaching English as it’s a huge focus for them.
Premier TEFL*
Premier TEFL is very similar to I-to-I in that they have tons of different course options–from specializations to 120+ hour TEFL certifications in Level 3 and 5. You will not run out of options. While these courses may be a little more expensive than Let’s TEFL when on sale, it’s for good reason. Each course comes with tons of extras! For example, their equivalent to the course I took with I-to-I also includes a 30 hours online specialization course, a letter of recommendation, personal tutor support, a lesson planning ebook, a grammar ebook, job hunting advice, and their new TEFL app. Plus, using the (affiliate) link above you can take a TEFL skills test and sign up to get 15% off of your course!
2. Behind the Scenes (Organization and Tools)
Trello
Oh my goodness! Trello is a gift from heaven above. If you’ve never used it before, you. have to get it–whether you’re an online tutor or not. You can make boards with links to different lesson plans, materials, games, ideas, resources, and whatever else you want to link to. They even have templates so you don’t have to do any of the set-up for common boards in categories like business, productivity, education, and more. You can use it as a scheduler, planner, organizer, or whatever else you can imagine. In addition to all this amazingness, you can connect it with other platforms like social media, google drive, calendars, and giphy to name a few.
This is not an affiliate or anything, but you can use my personal recommendation link above. All it does is give me a free month of Trello Gold. I won’t be upset if you don’t use it, though. So, don’t worry. No brownie points lost.
Grammarly*
I used to have something against Grammarly because it felt a little bit like cheating to me. But from blogging to lesson planning, it saves me from making so many accidental typos and silly mistakes. I feel like this is something everyone’s talking about, right now, but it’s just because it’s so helpful. I’m catching mistakes that I didn’t even notice (because I have a mental auto-correct that’s way too helpful for my own good). It will save you lots of time and embarrassment when going through your lesson plans. Use the link above to sign up today for free!
3. Where to Find Lesson Materials
BBC Learning English
If you want materials for every level, every age, and every style (listening, reading, writing, etc.) for free, this is the place for you. The only potential downside is that all of the resources are in various UK accents and spellings which may be difficult for less advanced students if you teach with an American accent and spellings.
The New York Times Learning Network
This is the perfect resource for teen and young adult students. The New York Times releases free articles, films, pictures, word searches, lesson ideas, and more for teachers to use during English classes. All of the lessons are based on current events and popular culture so the vocabulary will be very useful to all students.
The ThoughtCo
The ThoughtCo has a section of lesson plans and materials for ESL tutors as well as English Language Learners. In addition to English specific articles, exercises, lesson plans, and resources, they also release tons of articles about history, math, science, politics, popular culture, literature, and so much more. The link above will take you to the ‘Resources for ESL Teachers’ section, specifically. I promise that you can find articles for advanced students with every interest. To make a simple homework assignment, just add a little writing question and you’re good to go! When using the lesson plans, there are tons of activity ideas and exercises to put on a powerpoint to complete with your students.
4. Creating Lesson Materials
Canva
If you haven’t heard of Canva before, buckle up because this is going to be a wild awakening. This is another must-have for bloggers and tutors alike. I use Canva to design my blogging graphic, but more recently I’ve started using it to create lesson materials like fake menus and reusable lesson plans because they look so cute.
Prezi
I’ve been obsessed with Prezi since before it was popular for making unique school presentations. Now, I use it to make engaging “power points” because who doesn’t love a nice Prezi?
SlidesGo
If you like normal Google Slides and Powerpoint, SlidesGo will basically be your new addiction. Enough said.
Conclusion
Download this PDF (no email necessary) to get a copy of all of these resources (plus a tech section) for yourself and to easily access them whenever you want to!
However, I will gladly welcome you if you want to subscribe to hear more about my life, teaching, chronic illness, mental health, and faith, and most importantly, to download, Dwell: A Two Week Devotional for the Busy Girl, for free!
That’s all for now! Stay safe and I’ll see you next week.
