Teaching English With Skype?

[samarts]

Hello,

I'm a native English speaker (American English) and I reside in New York City. I taught abroad a few years ago, and did get my TESOL certificate. I need to make some extra money, so I was hoping to offer some English Conversation classes via Skype and charge $20/hour, or so. Has anyone done this? If so, how did it go? I guess the toughest part is getting students. I have no idea how to do this. I put in an ad in craigslist (Tokyo), but that's about it. Any ideas? or should I give up? I need to make some extra money and was hoping this would work...please advise.

Thanks!!!!
Samantha

[JackW]

Hi

To be honest, $20 may be a little steep. Finding students isn't the only problem - how do you plan to receive payment? How will you present materials? Skype isn't the greatest for online teaching - you need a whiteboard to go with it. WebEx or other meeting software would be better, but is more complicated, and your students may not have it or want to sign up. It's probably a good idea to start out with an online school that have all this sorted out and get some experience - online teaching is different to classroom teaching in many ways - it can take a little getting used to. I've been at it about 3 months, now and I'm starting to feel more comfortable with it.

J

[zuzuhany]

dear Samantha, i'm so glad that i finally found a netive speaker to ask for an advice . i'm trying to improve my english.and the idea is wonderful but the price is a little high .

[willkingdom]

I am really interested in this too.
We've started using webex with a few students and although it is a bit weird to begin with it seems to work. it's SOOO important to have reliable internet service; you don't want skippy fuzzy sound. learning/teaching is hard enough as it is.
very different to regular lessons and initially frustrating/worrying not being able to see your students reactions to instructions and tasks.
I found i've had to change materials drastically and experiment to get past technical issues and find out what works.
so far i've only done one:one lessons as a component of face to face courses.
technology in webex allows more but we are starting slow.
regarding prices: nothing wrong with charging even more. individual lessons go for 30bucks an hour.
talk to Canada charges 40CAD per hour.
The other benefits are improved efficiency (no travel time) which is also great for your students.

I would love to hear other teachers' experiences with this kind of teaching.
W