A lot of students and professionals have now turned to online tutorial as a fresh way of reviewing for classes and learning all kinds of stuff – from academics to extracurricular. As for people like me who are looking for an additional source of income, online teaching was suddenly worth a try.
Please note that I have no experience whatsoever in teaching or tutoring anyone. Nevertheless, when a friend of a friend introduced me to this private online tutorial center, the owner said that I don’t really need to have experience, but I have to show my student that I am well knowledgeable in the field that I will be teaching – which in this case would be English. Having worked in a call center before, I guessed it would be easy.
The task is basically to converse with my students and point out grammatical errors. I would also have to inject grammar lessons along the way. The online medium used is the call feature of Skype and YM since they’re free. Each session would last one hour per student, unless the student likes you very much and would like to extend. The “students” were all professionals and their 1st language is not English. However, they can understand and speak the language at hand at an intermediate level, but just needed to polish their conversational skills. As a newbie, I really have no idea what to do. It’s difficult to gauge each student’s knowledge. Having no experience in preparing lesson plans and modules, I resorted to intense Googling of online teaching strategies and materials.
The technique is to make the students feel that their teacher really prepared for the lesson. Since online tutoring doesn’t give me much variety in terms of teaching materials, I thought it best to make use of Powerpoint presentations. My initial classes were composed of picture exercises, word exercises, tongue twisters, and mock interviews. Week after week, I painstakingly think of more ways to make classes much more enjoyable and hassle-free for my students, who in this case also come home from work just like me.
I’ve been teaching for almost half a year now, and I can say that I’m really enjoying it. Not only have I found a way to increase my monthly earnings, but online teaching somehow breaks my monotonous routine as a regular employee stuck in a boring day job. It is a fulfilling experience, to realize that my students are actually learning something from what little knowledge that I share with them. It’s also fun because while I teach, I also get to learn a lot from them.
Sure, online tutorial has a lot of disadvantages. It’s hard enough to teach someone face to face, what more if your student is a thousand miles away? Teaching strategies are limited, you have to make do with soft copy versions all the time. Call quality can also be an issue, and many times I’ve experienced our call being disconnected. But all in all, teaching online is a job worth trying.
Online Jobs Related Articles
If you are an educator and you want to get a sideline to add up to your income, then you might want to consider getting a part-time online job as a tutor.
These days, there is an increasing demand for tutors online because there is a tougher and more competitive academic environment. Also, many students need extra help because their own parents barely have enough time to teach them since they are busy working and earning for the family.
Online options
Online tutoring help is becoming a very big help not only to students but to parents who don’t have much time to spend tutoring their kids at home. Many parents are now also aware that there are tutoring sites that can enable kids to arrive at school with an assignment which are already correct and complete.
Today, there are so many tutoring sites that provide information about specific subjects. There are those that offer these pieces of information for free but there are also those who are asking for charges for individualized programs that are create for them.
Majority of the online tutoring sites provide individualized programs with charges. Despite this, many parents still get the services of online tutors because they see the improvements on the child's willingness to learn and finish homework on time.
How to become an online tutor
If you want to get a part time online job as a tutor, the first thing that you have to do is organize your credentials. Since you will be transacting business virtually, the potential clients will base their decision in choosing you based on your achievements and accomplishments.
To those who are planning to explore the possibilities of becoming an online tutor, here are some of the tips that can help you get started. To become an effective online tutor, you must be able to:
- help the child to catch up on any missed skills. This is very important because it will ensure that even if the child missed something on school, there would be something that would remind him or her about the topic. Since it can be presented on a one-on-one basis, there are greater chances that the child will understand the topic better.
- improve the child's organizational skills as well as his or her study habits. This is a very important qualification because it ensures that the child will be able to develop good study habits and acquire new skills even if the program is finished.
- give extra instruction. A good online tutor should give extra instruction when it comes to school materials as well as concepts. This is very important to ensure that there would be more opportunities for learning and understanding for the child.
- have enough training as a teacher. This is very important if you want to get an online job as tutor because this will not only make tutoring easier for you but it will also ensure that the child will learn something at the end of the day especially in finishing his or her homework independently and on time.
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