The world of freelance work can be overwhelming at first. To help you, we\u2019ve put together a summary of our 10 steps to starting out on your career as a freelance language teacher.<\/p>\n
For a deeper dive into the 10 steps, take a look at the ultimate guide to starting your career as a freelance language teacher<\/a> on the UK Language Project blog.<\/p>\n A good start would be your native language. Or perhaps you\u2019d like to continue with a language you learned at Uni? You can help others learn while keeping your skills fresh as well. As long as you have at least C1 (advanced) level proficiency you\u2019re good to go.<\/p>\n \u2022 Ideal students<\/span> \u2013 Children, adults, teens, business people. There are lots of options. It\u2019s best to narrow things down to at least children vs adults. You\u2019ll save yourself time and effort buying materials and planning lessons and courses.<\/p>\n \u2022 Delivery of lessons<\/span> \u2013 A huge amount of learning is now online. This trend is going nowhere. Does online suit you? Or do you prefer a mix of both on and offline. Or even just going down the face to face route if it\u2019s safe to do so.<\/p>\n \u2022 Teaching for free<\/span> \u2013 Do you know any friends or family who want to learn the language you\u2019re looking to teach? Ask them if they\u2019d be willing to be your \u2018guinea pigs\u2019 for your first lessons. You can even advertise on noticeboards at the Uni to see if there are any takers.<\/p>\n \u2022 Language exchanges (aka intercambio)<\/span> \u2013 If you\u2019re looking to learn\/improve in another language this can be the way. Find an exchange partner (the Uni can help you with this) You teach your partner for an hour, your partner teaches you for an hour. You both improve your language and teaching skills at the same time.<\/p>\n If you decided to teach English as a foreign language (EFL) in step 1 then a Cambridge CELTA qualification is definitely recommended. The best way is to do the 4 week intensive CELTA which includes an expert who will observe and critically analyse your teaching. Essential if you\u2019re to make improvements in a short time.<\/p>\n For other languages don\u2019t worry about a qualification at this time. Your degree will be sufficient.<\/p>\n \u2022 Pricing:<\/span> Be careful here. It takes a second to lower your prices. It takes a lifetime to put them up. Be realistic about your prices and do your research. But don\u2019t undercut or discount. You haven\u2019t spent all these years in education to charge rock-bottom prices! There are a lot of these. We\u2019ve gone over the best to start out on, as well as best practices for setting up and maintaining your profile in the ultimate guide to starting your career as a freelance language teacher<\/a>, on the UK Language Project blog.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re inexperienced what\u2019s the most difficult thing to get? Experience! So once you\u2019ve got a few students work them. Go out of your way with your lessons and support for a few months. Really get through those first few months and into a more experienced position as fast as you can.<\/p>\n Study after study has shown that most people don\u2019t read beyond 10 reviews. But will read up to review 10. Ask your students to leave 5-star reviews for you and make sure you check to make sure they actually have done.<\/p>\n If you treat your first few months of teaching as a bit of R&D you\u2019ll be fine. Some lessons won\u2019t work. Some will work great. Others you\u2019ll have to tweak and tailor to the student. Keep learning and reviewing each lesson you do so you get better with each one. So you\u2019ve done a year or so freelance tutoring and you like it. Now is the time to look beyond the marketplaces and experiment on your own. Language agencies and schools who take on freelancers can be a great mix. They can offer more financial security as well as removing quite a lot of admin.<\/p>\n There we go. Follow these steps and you\u2019ll do great in your chosen path!<\/p>\n \u261e A big thank you to Ed from the UKLP team for writing this blog! We hope you all find it useful.\u261c<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n If you need careers support, your Careers Team is only an email \/ a message away!<\/p>\n E:<\/strong>\u00a0careers@westminster.ac.uk<\/a>|\u00a0Website<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|Careers Blog<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The world of freelance work can be overwhelming at first. To help you, we\u2019ve put together a summary of our 10 steps to starting out on your career as a freelance language teacher. For a deeper dive into the 10…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":10309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-employer-guest-blogs","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\ud83d\udca1 Step 1: Decide which language to teach<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\ud83d\udca1 Step 2: Decide on your ideal students and how you\u2019re going to deliver your lessons<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\ud83d\udca1 Step 3: Offer to teach for free and do language exchanges<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\ud83d\udca1 Step 4: Gain a qualification<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\ud83d\udca1 Step 5: Get your pricing, equipment and payments policies in order<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\n\u2022 Equipment:<\/span> If you\u2019re doing the online thing a headset, microphone and high-quality camera are a must. It\u2019s difficult to set yourself apart from the rest online. Quality is one way.
\n\u2022 Payment policies:<\/span> For your own private students we recommend taking payment for blocks of hours in advance, with a 24 hour cancellation policy. Don\u2019t let students \u2018pay as they go\u2019 as this can devastate your income if too many cancel (which they will!)<\/p>\n\ud83d\udca1 Step 6: Register at various tutoring marketplaces<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\ud83d\udca1 Step 7: Once you have students \u2013 keep teaching!<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\ud83d\udca1 Step 8: Obtain between 5 and 10 marketplace reviews<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\ud83d\udca1 Step 9: Keep doing what works, ditch what doesn\u2019t<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\nYou won\u2019t have to do this for ever, but in the first few months it\u2019ll push you to the next level.<\/p>\n\ud83d\udca1 Step 10: Look beyond the marketplaces<\/strong><\/h5>\n