The desire to learn languages is growing, and the number of people hoping to become a teacher is also increasing every year. When we think of becoming teachers, we usually have a rough idea of what kind of teacher we would be or what type of lesson we would like to teach. As the world becomes more open and more and more people are learning multiple languages, the needs of our students also become more specific. 

Whether it be free conversation, lessons for kids, IELTS/TOEIC amongst other exams, grammar as well as many others, there is a vast range of different types of lessons within just the English education atmosphere. Each lesson type comes with its own materials, skills, and techniques that cannot be taken lightly, and by taking a look at ourselves and thinking about our skills, personality, and experience we might be able to not only easily define what type of lesson to specialize in but also a deep look into what each type of lesson entails and what skills might be required. 

In the era of the free market English teacher, I understand that many teachers would aspire to be a “Jack of all trades” teacher who can cover everything and be able to secure students with a range of goals and requirements. Whilst this sounds tempting in order to fill up your schedule it would also be easy to fall into the “Master of none” category of teacher where each individual type of lesson isn’t performed to the highest possible level. 

Being a teacher who specializes in exam preparation will require the teacher to study the exams in detail, acquire textbooks, figure out the techniques, and even try the exam themselves. In the English sphere, even if you teach exam prep, the IELTS and TOEFL exams are so different, each requiring its own deep preparation. Grammar also requires knowledge and even needs you to study your own language. As a native British English speaker, I had to study each grammar point in detail because my smooth usage of grammar was just naturally ingrained in me from growing up in the country. How could I teach the past perfect participle or reporting phrases if I didn’t understand what they meant? How can you get students from a 6.5 to a 7 in IELTS speaking if you don’t know what each band entails? It really requires the teacher to put in the work to learn, in order to teach. 

Where it might require a lot of homework to begin your journey into being a specialist teacher, the rewards are definitely worth it. If you can become a trusted and highly rated IELTS teacher, then come IELTS season, you can easily reap in thousands of dollars a month. I have seen teachers who charge $50+ an hour and get fully booked, though there might be down seasons as the school/university year dictates. 

To no surprise, if you want to teach kids, then you need to like kids and have a personality to match their energies. Teaching kids also requires a lot of materials, whether they be bought or prepared by yourself in order to keep the kid's attention. Though perhaps teaching kids or doing free conversation lessons might pay less compared to grammar or exam preparation, it is much easier to keep students for longer, by booking regular lessons and utilizing packages. You can easily stack many 30-minute slots on top of each other and meet lots of interesting people all over the world, with a range of experiences and goals and also be a big part in a child's potential first experience of education maybe even having a hand into what they want to be in the future. These types of lessons are also more personality-driven, requiring good communication and people skills as well as being able to hold a conversation no matter how many times a bit of dead air arises. 

Whilst I do teach IELTS and grammar lessons a few times a month, I personally specialize in free conversation and kids' lessons. As the principal of an international school and a teacher of 14 years, I feel like my skills lean strongly towards holding a conversation, being able to connect topics together, pick up on what students want to say even if they don’t know the words and also having the skills to be able to sell yourself as a teacher as marketing ourselves is also part of the industry. If students don’t know what we can do, then why would they book us? 

I hope this article today was able to give you a bit of insight into thinking about what kind of lessons you want to teach and what kind of teacher you want to be. Once you find your niche and build up your own portfolio of teaching experience, being a teacher online is a truly rewarding and exciting experience. 

Expert Teacher Jake Nalton wrote this article!