How To Get Started As An Online English Teacher

6.
1: How to get started as an online English teacher
Get started
If your teaching experience is limited and you're not an internet wiz, working for a company can
act as an excellent type of 'internship'. Admittedly, the money can be low and the hours
unreliable, but you'll receive on-the-job training and technical and pedagogical support.
When choosing an established company, you'll need to find one that has students looking
for lessons in your working hours (your time zone). There are often advertisements on
Facebook pages like Online English teachers.
Create a blog
You can begin with Blogger (https://www.blogger.com/), which is very easy to use. You can use
authentic materials such as news articles, TED talks and YouTube clips, and create lesson plans
around them.
Equipment needed
You should have a well-functioning laptop or desktop computer, a reliable internet connection,
and a few key peripherals, including a video camera or webcam, a good microphone, and a
headset. Most laptops come with an internal microphone and camera, so if you’re getting a
new computer, you probably don’t have to worry about those items unless you want to
upgrade to higher-quality gear. If your computer is old enough that it lacks these items, you
can purchase them cheaply enough but, if that’s the case, you should probably get a new
computer.
Whatever your computer situation, consider buying a good set of noise-cancelling

headphones. These will come in handy both when speaking to students through video-
conference and when you’re trying concentrate on grading assignments while your family
makes a ruckus in the background.
As for the computer you choose, you’ll likely want to be on the same page as your students.
Roughly 80% of students use an Apple laptop. The MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are most
popular among them. The other 20% of students are evenly divided between Dell and Lenovo
laptops.
One good tip when you’re shopping around for a new laptop or peripherals. Many schools offer
discounts on these items through campus or online bookstores. If you’re already affiliated with
a school, find out more about these possible discounts. For further handy tips, check out The
Savvy Student’s Guide to Computers for College.
Choose a platform to communicate with your students
Skype (https://www.skype.com/) is a very useful platform for online teaching. You can have free
video or audio conversations with your students, as long as they have a Skype account. You can
send files, type corrections and new vocabulary in the message box, share a view of your screen
and also share a system sound, which makes Skype a powerful tool for teachers wishing to use
videos in their lessons.
Zoom (https://www.zoom.us/) allows you to connect with students using an interactive video
conference platform. The free version offers unlimited 1 to 1 meetings or group meetings which
are limited to a 40-minute duration. The system automatically creates a copyable URL and
invitation to join the meeting, which can be forwarded to your student, once you have created
a new meeting. When your student first connects, they will be prompted to upload the Zoom
plug-in, which only takes a few seconds. The call seems to be of a much higher quality than other
video conference platforms, it works well internationally, and appears to offer a solution to
students in some countries where Skype is not available. Zoom’s features like screen sharing,
system sound sharing, a whiteboard, screen annotation and meeting recording are ideal for an
online classroom.
Manage your time effectively
Playposit (https://go.playposit.com/) is free and works on all major internet browsers. It is free
and works on all major internet browsers. It enables you to create interactive video lessons using
any YouTube video, a URL or MP4 file, and allows you to embed time-linked interactive activities,
in the form of questions, to the video. Students participate in these activities as they watch the
video. They can stop and rewind the video at any point, but cannot progress until they have
completed each activity. When you've finished creating your interactive video lesson, it can be
shared or you can embed it on your website or blog.
Off2Class (https://www.off2class.com/) is a website that offers ready-made course materials in

the form of a set of slides. The site offers a library of ESL (English as a Second Language) lesson
plans and new lessons are added weekly. The content is teacher-led and designed for a live
conversation class, to be taught online. As the teacher, you have the ability to invite a student to
join you in order to view the lesson materials together and interact with the content during the
lesson. It's a great website and a real time-saver, you can even brand the site with your own
personal logo and domain.

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6.

1: How to get started as an online English teacher

Whatever your computer situation, consider buying a good set of noise-cancelling

Choose a platform to communicate with your students

Manage your time effectively

Off2Class (https://www.off2class.com/) is a website that offers ready-made course materials in

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