Interested in teaching english as a foreign language.

[greencrosscode]

Anybody done this and know a little more...

I have a degree...

Online teaching? Can you earn more than about £9perhour? I suppose it may be good to start online before traversing the globe...

Which tefl/celta/trinity courses are best? When do they start?

What are the relative merits of working in various countries?

Many thanks...

Where do you want to teach? I taught in London and abroad (Africa and USA). I've never taught online but it's probably booming at the moment.
Other people will have much more recent experience than me but you can get a lot more than £9 an hour once you are qualified. The most I ever got was about £50 an hour - bear in mind you only get paid for contact time and you have to do your preparation and marking unpaid so £9 is poor for the students as well.
The best starter qualifications are Trinity certificate in TESOL or CELTA which take a month and are fairly intensive, but you really learn a lot. I did Trinity and I never regretted it. Any reputable employer should ask for one of these qualifications for a new inexperienced teacher and I would be wary of working for them if they didn't.
The best thing I did in this industry was getting experience teaching exam classes such as IELTS, which is a qualification students need to study at UK universities. Other specialties such as business English can also really increase your earning power and put you in demand.
You definitely need someone with more recent experience than me though to tell you about online stuff and covid because I have no idea!

Online teaching is both booming and saturated at the moment, as you can imagine. There's a FB group called Hired Online English Teachers that has all the info about online teaching. Most of the work is in China, most of the companies are Chinese, and some are total rip off merchants to both client and teacher. Many employ people who have no qualifications or experience as the teacher is really just expected to read off a script.
Whales English
EF online are both fairly reputable online providers, but do your homework.

If you want to get into teaching seriously, do a CELTA. No reputable organisation will take you without one, and you should think twice about accepting work from a company that doesn't require one. The Trinity one is fine, as are any of the other providers. Not sure about now, with Covid, but check on tefl.com to find one near you.

It's obviously a strange time to get into the business as many UK language schools have closed, some permanently due to Covid. The other side of the coin is that when things pick up again, Brexit means non UK citizens will have more difficulty being hired. As things are looking in the industry at the moment, a lot of the UK based companies are moving towards hybrid/blended, so you'll have students in the room with you, and others online at the same time.

Best countries to earn: middle East, Japan.
Most jobs available: China

£9 an hour for online tbh is pretty good from most companies.

Another thing to remember about the online situation at the moment is that most kids do language lessons as an extra curricular thing...and many of them have been online all day as schools have been closed. So the companies aren't getting the punters they were hoping for because 6 hours online lessons a day is enough for anyone without sitting them back down again for an English lesson.
China still booming though and will continue to do so until they can travel again. It was always the Biggie for online work anyway.

You could also set yourself up on something like Palfish or Cambly which are platforms that you use to market yourself and hold your lessons.

www.facebook.com/groups/1461639020536035/?ref=share

That's the FB group.

@Geamhradh

Thanks. How much does it pay in China, Japan & the Middle East?

No idea tbh, I work between Italy and the UK. Japan and the Middle East are the biggies, but you definitely need qualifications and usually experience.

I worked with someone in the UK 6 years ago who was going to Saudi so she could retire to Italy. She's now in Italy so I'm guessing it's quite a lot!

I teach English online and have done for 4 years. I work for a small company that my sister started up (she is living in this country). I am a qualified teacher but haven't been in the classroom since having dc. I earn 22USD for 50 minutes but the bonus is I don't plan or mark a single thing. It's all given to me and I deliver it.

I really enjoy it and it fits around my dc perfectly. If you can find a good and fair company I would recommend it.

Thanks. Just trying to get my head around things. I read the Celta cost about £1500 (could be wrong) so that's quite a lot to splash out to earn minimum wage doing online teaching. Although I guess doing online could be a good way to find out if it's my thing. But I've seen jobs in China and Japan for 20kplus which is okay, particularly as I believe outgoings can sometimes be cheap in China particularly.