jill’s

Minimum Requirements

(but some Korean Schools may ask for more than the list below):

Male/Female, not more than 40 years old

Must be willing to work from Mondays to Fridays

Has at least 6 months of online teaching experience, preferably to Koreans or to foreign students

Must have a neutral American accent

Must have a strong sense of responsibility and commitment

Other Reqirements:
Must have a WIRED internet connection (DSL, Broadband, Cable, etc) plan of at least 512 Kbps, a good working headset with a noise cancellation function and a web cam
Computer/Laptop used must be at least a Pentium IV or higher, and with at least a 512 MB memory or higher
Must be situated in a quiet environment.

Due to a number of people asking me about my current part-time job as an ESL Online tutor (Home-based) and how I got it, I had to rant about this one. This site was the one in charge of it all. Please read on…

OnTue.Com is an online site that helps ESL teachers and students find each other. Most of the clients here are Koreans while many teachers are Filipinos.

At first, I find this hard to manage as there are many requirements before one can completely enjoy its features but their posting requirements though tedious, I should say, made sense after all.

Thru this site, teachers can create their own profile with their resume and pictures, sample videos and audios, class schedules, blogs about online teaching so that students and employers can easily find them. Teachers can also exchange ideas about their teaching strategies and experiences. By using their sections, a teacher will have greater chances of getting students or employers whichever is desired. It’s a good way of marketing oneself for FREE!!! Students and employers can also place ads for their needs for FREE. Teachers can see the section, “TEACHERS WANTED”. This section is a listing of current students or employers seeking for teachers. While in the “STUDENTS WANTED” , teachers can post their schedule and rate so that students can get in touch with the teachers.

What’s good about OnTue.Com is that the statistics of teachers, students and employers who use this are so high that it is very easy to find what you are looking for. The statistics alone can tell you if this is a working site or not.

As of today, June 16, 2009, there are 6803 teachers. Because there are many qualified teachers on the site, more students and employers look and place their ads on this site. Some sites have a few teachers and a few students but chances are slim for outsourcing ones needs.

Of all my internet surfing for an ESL job, this is the site that produced result in me! Visit the site, learn more about it, post your curriculum vitae and get an ESL job that you’ve been searching for.

Watching these shows used to be a part of my afternoon-evening routine.

The Sweet Life by Lucy Torres-Gomez

TV Patrol

May Bukas Pa

Tayong Dalawa

I am not a great fan of these shows but that’s all that I can do after exhausting my energy for a day in the internet. I am so glad I have changed my course since I started my work-at-home. Though I don’t have the time to watch them anymore, I am not saddened by it. What I do now is more fruitful and healthy, I suppose. Besides, it’s just 6 hours!

I just love this new part of my life.

MY STUDENTS

My online students are from South Korea enrolled in SLP Academy in S. Korea. Their ages range from 8-12 years old. Each class is a one-on-one session that lasts for only 15 minutes. A teacher gets a five-minute break per class. Students are met by the teachers only once a week. A fully-booked day like for me who works for 6 hours a day should have a maximum of 18 students. However, the pay of a teacher does not depend on the number of students.

There are no strict rules for teachers. It’s just simple English conversations. But teachers need to find a way to make this 15-minute talk fun and exciting. Teachers need to find out through conversation what interests them. Most of them are really beginners in speaking English but there are a number of students who can exchange good conversations. For some, responding to a Yes/No question is too difficult for them. While others, enjoy making conversations through the Whiteboard in our Homemeeting Classroom (an online board). That’s why teachers need to be very engaging and exciting.

THE SYSTEM

Usually, online teachers use Skype for tutoring which can also be good. However, at SLP Academy they have this Homemeeting thing that we use. Students call the assigned teacher using this software. When the teacher answered the call, the student and the teacher can see each other through the screen. In this system, they can also send instant messages, have a joint browsing of the web and there is also the Whiteboard. By using the Whiteboard, students and also teachers can write, draw or color anything they want. It looks like the Paint program in Windows. This is just one fun way to start a conversation with young children. Some children are more visual than others.

BEING AN ESL TUTOR

I really find it fun and exciting especially knowing who my students are. But in order to succeed in this, a teacher’s true heart must be into it. The purpose becomes meaningful. A teacher’s purpose then must be to truly help the student learn what she/he desires to learn. Once a teacher has this kind of helpful heart, she/he tries to reach out to her/his students by getting to know them (their favorites, hobbies, talents, strengths and weaknesses and many more) and by doing all that she/he can to make the student gain from each 15-minute conversation. Doing means studying, researching and employing the various ways of how her/his students can learn best.

Before we moved to this house, our internet connection used to be Globe DSL @1 Mbps. I was so glad that ever since I used it I never encountered any problems. Unless there is really no connection.

But now that we are here, we have to use the old PLDT phone line as well as the internet connection that has less 1 Mbps attached to it for some practical reasons. I may have been impatient at times with Globe but when I encountered PLDT, my patience has really gone a very long, long way. It feels like the connection was 5 or 10 years ago when I was in early 20s. Worst was, I am on my second day of my part time job as an Online Tutor. I can’t even receive and make a call through Skype. It had been a disastrous meeting with my students in our ‘homemeeting classroom”. I was expecting an almost fully-booked schedule but I had missed my first 3 students because of the failure in the internet connection.

Since we are two people who are truly and certified internet users both for pleasure and work, our planned solution then is to keep still this old PLDT connection and subscribing to Globe’s DSL pack priced Php999.00. It’s better than losing a job that I like and I love.

In this way, when one has a problem there is still another available. Let’s just hope that they won’t both get problems at the same time.