I knew, when I started teaching ESL, that the income was not going to be consistent. What I did not realize is just how inconsistent it would be. The English Center, while more consistent of late, continues to cut into my ability to plan my schedule In a way that actually makes me money. I think this month will be the first month where I actually make much less money than I have before. It is certainly a huge change from June 2019 when I actually made a profit.
I know it will ultimately be OK but it is nerve-racking not having some sort of income stability. In addition, I’m actually working less hours. In fact, this may be the least amount of hours I work in a week. I think I’m working about 14 teaching hours a week between English Center and VIPKid, leaving about three hours for my own private teaching. Things were looking up in the beginning of the week when I gave a trial lesson to a woman who wanted English lessons for her sons. She lives in Ireland so I did think it was kind of odd that she wanted English lessons as she lives in English speaking country, but agreed to give a half an hour trial lesson to the three of them. At the end of the lesson, it was agreed that the younger one probably didn’t have the focus for online ESL lessons but the older one did and would do well. We set up for lessons over two weeks. I sent them an email with my policies and on Saturday evening they got back to me saying that they weren’t going to continue with lessons. I’m not sure if it was a money issue or a timing issue or they found someone in Ireland to teach the kids. Or if my new pay in advance policy scared them off. But I have found that after the Felix debacle that’s what I am going to have to do from now on.
The opening up of my schedule allowed me to open up a few more slots for VIPKid that I am not sure are going to book. With the way things are going, I stand to make much less money with VIP kid than ever before. So it’s not becoming a feasible source of income anymore. Luckily, there is still the conversation playground sometime in October and I do have some classes that I need to finish up, with current and pending students at the English center. So there is teaching work until at least December, just how much remains to be seen.
I do have some faith that things will turn around and I will get some work. To that end, I have decided to try and broaden my horizons by figuring out how to certify in translation and perhaps in teaching Greek or French as well. I’ll have to have a conversation with Lexis Amsterdam, for whom I’ve done some work in the past in English, about actually teaching in Greek. But more specifically how to certify in teaching in Greek.
I also assisted another VIPKid teacher by talking about how to go digital via Manycam and gave a little bit of a presentation to some teachers online. It was a meetup and quite casual but I don’t really like being the focus of attention even for 10 minutes. Still it went well and people seemed to enjoy it. I was not as pleased with my performance however.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always, there is more to come.
Inkreadable 