The Best Online TEFL Jobs – What’s on Offer

So, you’ve gone through our training, and now you hold a brand-new TEFL qualification. Congratulations! You’ve taken your first steps towards building the career you want. However, what jobs are available for a TEFL teacher who wants to work online? You’ve got a lot of options. Working online is becoming more and more popular with time as people start to wake up to the idea of using the web to build a career from anywhere. 

We’ve put our heads together and come up with a list of prospective options for career paths you can pursue. They’re all designed to give you different opportunities, and some take advantage of extra courses and work you’ve done during your studies. Let’s take a look at what there is to explore. 

TEFL Teacher – Language School

Naturally, the first option which you’ve got available to you will be one of the most common options out there – teaching English as a new TEFL teacher and working online in a language school. 

This position is probably the one which most newly qualified teachers will be able to access with the least amount of difficulty. The great thing about language schools is that they usually hire new teachers who have a qualification but not a lot of experience, and then they give them a part-time contract equal to about 30 hours a week. It is a position designed to give you experience, and it’s a good way to start teaching immediately. 

A lot of language schools are now looking for remote staff to do the same work. The terms of the contract will be basically the same – it is all about working for about 30 hours or so, teaching English mostly to adults who will want to learn for the sake of improvement. However, you’ll be working online! You’ll need some basic equipment, which is the same for all positions – we’ll cover that a little later. 

TEFL Teacher – Private Company

The second option on the list is to work for an online private company that wants to offer English lessons and needs new TEFL teachers to do it. Unlike a career working in a traditional language school, this is a very broad role that could take a lot of different forms.

The type of job you get depends on the company you work with. You might find that you’re working for a business that offers private tuition, or you’re one of many ‘loaners’ who are distributed to online schools as necessary to fill gaps – like a substitute teacher. There are a lot of private businesses out there that have a hand in the education sector, so picking up a job isn’t exactly difficult.

However, because there are so many companies out there that are all doing different things, you’ll find that there are a lot of different entry requirements to consider. You might find that you need to have a degree or a specific TEFL qualification from us – it is important to do a little research ahead of time and find out what works for you. 

Business English Teacher 

Business English is enough of a separate career that it is worth mentioning as a specific online job. Being able to teach business English is not something that everybody can do. You have to take a specific qualification to be able to prove that you can teach business English at a proper level. It’s a qualification that we offer.

Honestly, lots of people are surprised at the idea that speaking business English is different from normal English. Business English is designed for the corporate world and is becoming a necessity for anybody who wants to excel. Therefore, there are more and more remote jobs available where people can teach business English as a specialist subject.

Generally speaking, you don’t need much beyond your normal qualifications and a business English certification to be able to unlock this particular career path. It can pay quite well, and if you’re reliable, then you can definitely start to build up a good reputation and quickly find yourself in demand. It’s worth looking into if you fancy specialising.

Primary School Teacher 

This next career path is one that probably requires a little bit more prior planning and qualifications in order to accomplish it, but it’s also a very secure career. Lots of schools, especially those in other parts of the world, are using remote teachers to provide education. There are plenty of places where people never went back to the classroom environment after the COVID-19 pandemic and instead settled into a remote learning space. With modern technology like Zoom and Microsoft Teams available, it’s quite easy for schools to teach at a distance.

If you are comfortable with the idea of teaching children, then this is definitely something you could look into. However, you would be held to basically the same standard as if you were trying to teach in a physical classroom. You will probably need a degree and teaching qualification in addition to your TEFL certifications. There may be strict screening requirements because you’re working with kids, but it’s definitely possible to forge a career teaching students online.

Freelance Tutor 

If none of the other options that you have available to you feel like something you want to do, then you are left with one of the most readily accessible and unique ways to build a career for yourself, which is to become a freelance tutor. Lots of people find that traditional employment structures don’t work for them. They chafe against the idea of having to be accountable all the time, and they don’t always agree with the way that companies do things. Therefore, building their own business is the way that they can take back control and teach on their own terms.

If you work as a tutor, then you get to decide who you teach, how you teach them, and how much you charge. You have absolute creative control over any and all business decisions because you are a self-employed freelancer. Effectively, you’re running your own business with this option, which, for many people, is appealing. The great thing about being an online tutor and doing it as a business is that you can do it full-time or as a side hustle. It’s largely up to you.

Obviously, you will have to source your own equipment, and work out what you need for yourself, but we will give you a list of things to think about. 

What Do You Need to Work Online?

So, what are some of the tools that you need to be able to work online? First and foremost, you will need a stable internet connection. No matter what kind of remote job you are doing, you need to have reliable access to the web. It’s no good if your classes are buffering or you are constantly waiting for your connection. Not only does this make you look bad, but it also reflects poorly on your employer if you have one. It’s a fast track to finding yourself out of a job.

You will also need to have the right equipment for doing your job. We recommend that you have access to a desktop computer because trying to work from a mobile phone isn’t always practical. You also need access to headphones, preferably wireless ones. Wireless headphones will allow you to move around the classroom space and teach without being impeded by wiring.

Naturally, one of the most important things to do is to make sure that you have a good class environment. You will be responsible for creating this yourself, so you need to pick a quiet space, preferably one way you can have a whiteboard to write things down and take feedback from students. Building a teaching space for yourself is something which will grow and evolve over time, so don’t worry if it’s not perfect straight away. 

Is Working Online Worth It?

Lots of people wonder whether working online is the right decision for them. It’s pretty important to try and look at working online as an exercise in freedom. The real benefit to remote jobs is that you’re not bound by geographical location or circumstances. You could work a job that’s in another country if you have the right lifestyle for it, which means that you’re free to pursue whatever kind of career you want.

A lot of our graduates have gone online to find work, and one of the biggest things that we’ve learned from talking to them is that motivation is probably the most difficult thing for people who are working online. You have to be motivated to find your career, find a job, keep that job ticking over, build up your online reputation, and grow as an educator. A lot of people find this to be difficult, understandably. It’s hard for some people to be self-motivated, and it can be a big lifestyle change if you have worked in an office for 20 years before this, for example.

We definitely recommend pursuing online work if you are looking for the opportunity to enjoy a very unique and rewarding career. You have a lot of freedom if you work in this fashion, possibly more than if you were pursuing other careers in different ways. Being able to choose how you do things and the way you do things gives you a lot of freedom. That is probably the reason why people actively pursue online work as much as they do. Having the freedom to choose how you do things makes such a big difference for so many people. 

Online TEFL Jobs

So, a lot of people talk about online jobs in a very positive way. However, depending on who you talk to and their personal experiences with working online, you will get polarising opinions about the nature of online work. It’s something we recommend for anybody who is interested in exploring a wide range of careers without having to tie themselves to one place geographically.

You will have to get qualified if you want to be able to work online. At the very basic level, you will have to have a good TEFL qualification because this is proof that you are capable of teaching English as a foreign language. 

We have to stress how important it is for people to find the right qualifications for their career path. If you want to teach business English, for example, then you will need a certain kind of qualification to do this. It is important to think about what kind of career you want to have before you start looking for qualifications. 

The best advice we can give anybody is that if you are not sure what kind of course you want to study or the type of career you want to have, then your best bet is to go for the most advanced qualification you can find. If you take the time to complete the most advanced qualification and offer as many opportunities as possible, you’re not restricted by your own skill set. In our case, we recommend the 300-hour course to accomplish this.

We are always here to help you succeed, which is why you are welcome to ask us if you ever need support choosing a qualification for online work. We’d be happy to talk you through it because there’s a lot you need to do, and it can be important to do it properly. After all, if you pick the wrong course, it can be difficult to fix. 

Ultimately, we would recommend online work to anyone because it can be rewarding and also gives you freedom. Being able to pick the right career path for you can often start with online work, and it becomes easy to build up a reputation for being an expert.