Online English training or teaching… This is how I have set up my business.
A lot of people make the comparison of England, as an island country, spreading the use of the English language around the globe to the web as the current age colonization force. I think the web and web tools have accelerated the growing population of English L2 speakers.
Building a practice that takes advantage of web-based tools for the English learner, and business interaction using English as the lingua franca, and that includes business meetings and business job interviews. The backbone of this new colonization is a good internet connection, a good computer, webcam with audio and video, and software like Skype®.
I use Skype® and WhatsApp® to share ideas, open appointments and give follow up ideas quickly. I insist that students have full Skype® functions audio and video because the visual feedback is crucial. I use to use email for homework files, and now I just send them from inside Skype®. There is also a shared screen function that lets you work on a Google doc while in a Skype® session.
Google Office® is used to set up calendars for appointments and track lesson types and shared documents that I can interact with students in real-time. When presenting lesson materials, I use a combination of synchronous and asynchronous ideas.
Almost my entire practice is built around web-centric tools… I reach out to new students through communal websites and user groups. I establish paid relationships through websites that match the student with a teacher. I use web-based training programs to learn myself and understand how to present training to new students.
In the Spring of 2014, I was fortunate to have several serendipitous events happen to me. While planning a Fall trip to Spain, I started to do my research on online communal language websites. I found a site where people from around the world interacted to learn each other’s language. Part of the group I was interested in was native Spanish speakers living in Spain. There I found a group and discovered that all primary and secondary school teachers in Spanish public school system had to present a full class period per day in English starting in the Fall of 2014.
I had found a target group that trained and presented material as teaching professionals, just like me. This group was well educated and particularity interested in the interview procedures and protocols. I found myself developing lesson plans around job interview procedures for groups working with lingua franca type English interactions and also native speaker to L2 speaker. The distinction was drawn because the level of English I found was not as precise in lingua franca as it was with a native speaker to L2 speaker.
Check out my Teachable course called Teaching English….Your Nomadic Business.
More to come….