Teaching Online with Preply (eventually)

     I've been trying to pick up a few extra students online and considering that I have 15 years of teaching experience, a lot of the options that are open to random internet people aren't really quite my cup of tea. Signing up to teach someone else's curriculum for less than 20 bucks an hour isn't going to work for me for obvious reasons. 

     The last time I checked, the going rate for one hour of English teaching from a native speaker in my area was around 3000 yen per hour. Even with the falling into dollar exchange rate, I still can't really wrap my head around accepting something like nine dollars an hour for teaching, yet that's exactly what one website suggested I do because I don't have American teaching credentials aside from an online certified TEFL and 15 years teaching experience.

     I also have a bachelor's degree from an accredited American institution, but not a degree in teaching. Trying to find a company that would work with my hours and my options was a big challenge, so I was very excited when I happened upon Preply.

One day, maybe I will, creepy app.

     It seems you can pick your own hours and change your prices according to what you want to offer and they will take a percentage of whatever it is you make. That percentage will get smaller the more you teach, according to their website. I thought this sounded like probably the best version of this setup that I'm going to get right now so I signed up.

      The process for signing up took about ten days of me going back and forth, re-recording pictures and welcome videos and re-explaining myself while hunting down ancient TEFL certificates. Finally, I got the okay to go ahead and be a part of that community where they suggested based on my qualifications that I offer classes for nine dollars an hour or less. 

Who is Ben G? Why does Inactive Student have an account? How can they open a message box with me and not actually message me? What is going on?!

     Six weeks passed with no actual messages or class requests. Part of this is due to my awkward scheduling and part due to my choice for pricing. The website recommends setting classes for 7-10 AM in Japan, which isn't a time that I have available usually. 

Screen shot from the website. The peak hours change based on your timezone and they use a 24 hour clock, so they mean 7-10 AM in Japan.

     It's my assumption that the best way to make this work is to lower prices to almost nothing for a time in order to attract customers and get reviews. Since you don't get paid for trial lessons anyway, you might as well do those for $5 each or less, right?

      After a month or two of burning up your energy for profit equal to less than a cup of coffee per hour, you start increasing prices. A lot of clients will fall away, chasing cheaper deals, but the ones who know what a deal they were getting will stay, hopefully.

      If you were only in the market for a few more students, this might be a way to find them. I just don't have the time to put into it when my kid is out for summer break