5 Tips for Creating Your Ideal Online English Teaching Schedule

Creating your ideal schedule as an online English teacher is one of the best ways to design a teaching career you love. With the tips below, you can discover how to maximize your earning potential, avoid common scheduling mistakes, and create an online English teaching schedule that complements your life.

If you’re new to teaching, you’ll want to get initial training and qualification with a TEFL certificate. You can explore our online TEFL courses to get started!

1. Consider factors that affect your online English teaching schedule.

Depending on where you live, online English teaching doesn’t always follow the typical 9-5 hours. If you’re a night owl or an early bird, this might be great news for you! Here are some factors to consider when it comes to types of schedules for teaching English online.

Peak hours

When you’re interviewing for a job with an online English teaching company, or if you’re recently hired, it’s important to find out what the peak teaching hours are for that specific company. “Peak hours” refers to the time of day (or night)  when the company has the highest demand for classes.

For example, let’s imagine that you have been hired by an online English teaching company located in Spain, teaching adults. The company may tell you that the peak teaching hours are from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Madrid time during the week. Then, you’ll want to convert from Madrid time into your own time zone.

Knowing the company’s peak teaching hours is important because this is when you’ll be able to book the most classes and you may receive a higher rate of pay with most companies if you teach during their peak hours.

Preferred schedule

In addition to considering peak hours, if you have specific hours that you want to teach, consider what time zones or regions would accommodate the online English teaching schedule you prefer.

For example, if you live in North America and want to work from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., you could teach Japanese students in the morning (their evening) and then students in Europe or Latin America in the afternoon.

Class length

Another factor to consider is the class length. Typically, classes are either 20-30 minutes or 40-60 minutes. Each company is slightly different so you’ll want to do your research. Some teachers love teaching short classes and others prefer the longer ones.

Browse online teaching jobs worldwide on the Bridge Job Board.

2. Maximize your income potential through your teaching schedule.

Regardless of whether you’re teaching part-time or full-time, it’s important to make the most of your earning potential when creating your ideal online teaching schedule.

Make yourself available to teach during peak hours

Taking advantage of peak hours is an easy way to start. As mentioned, some companies offer bonuses for teaching peak hours allowing you to earn more money than you would if you were teaching the same class at a different time.

Teach online for more than one company

If you’re not able to teach as many hours as you would like with your primary company, consider adding a second or creating a profile on an online teacher marketplace. You could even add a company from a different time zone, which can open up additional hours for you that might not be available with your primary company.

Learn other ways to make the most money you can as an online English teacher.

Look for opportunities to take on other roles beyond teaching

If you’re happy with your company, you could also look into doing recruiting or other supplementary positions with them, like creating content or developing materials.

3. Always triple-check your online English teaching schedule – don’t double-book!

Since we just talked about teaching with multiple companies, we can’t overlook the importance of knowing your schedule. Teaching with multiple companies is one of the best ways to increase your bookings and income; however, it also requires you to be very organized.

You never want to “double book,” meaning arrange bookings from two companies for the same day and time. Remember that some online English companies have strict cancelation policies and that canceling multiple classes could compromise your teaching contract.

There are 2 strategies for avoiding double booking:

Strategy 1: The first is to teach with companies that have different teaching schedules or are based in different time zones. For instance, you could open your schedule with company A for 3 hours in the morning. Then, you could work with company B for 3 hours in the afternoon or the evening. This way, you never risk double booking because you’re opening your schedule at completely different times.
Strategy 2: The other strategy is to teach with different companies on different days. This is a good strategy if you want to work for multiple companies that offer the same peak teaching times or are located in the same time zone. For example, you might work with company A on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then work with company B on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

4. If you teach online with a company, supplement your schedule with independent teaching.

As a new teacher, working with a company is a great way to gain experience and understand how the online ELT industry works. Once you’ve gained experience, you might want to explore becoming an independent English teacher to have more control over your schedule and student base.

There are three main ways to teach English online as an independent teacher: freelance work for a company, working through an online teacher marketplace, and being a teacherpreneur.

Some of the biggest advantages of independent teaching are:

You can create your own schedule, build your own lesson materials, and set your own prices.
If you have specific hours that you want to work, you can either offer lessons locally in your community or find regions with complementary time zones.
Independent teaching can also allow you to focus on a niche and reach a specific market of students. You could niche down to teaching IELTS exam preparation, accent reduction, business English, writing, or public speaking. You could even design custom courses for a specific demographic, such as college students or doctors.

Ready to become an independent English teacher? The Bridge Teacherpreneur Academy is designed to equip experienced ESL teachers with the business and marketing skills needed to launch and grow their own independent online teaching business.

5. Remember to schedule downtime to avoid burnout. 

One of the most important tips for creating your online English teaching schedule is to include relaxing hobbies or activities. Teaching English online is an enjoyable and rewarding job, but it also requires a lot of energy. Plus, if you’re working late nights or early mornings, this can take a toll on your mental and physical health.

Whether it’s taking a daily walk after your classes are finished, reading a book, doing yoga, or chatting with family or friends, it’s imperative to schedule some downtime to decompress. Make sure that you have at least one relaxing or fun activity to look forward to each day to avoid burnout when teaching English online.

As you can see, creating your ideal online English teaching schedule will require planning. Fortunately, if you use these tips for scheduling online English students, you’ll find that you’ll also have a lot of flexibility to create the teaching schedule that suits you best is best.

Take care of yourself when teaching online. Check out Bridge’s 10-hour Micro-credential course: Health, Safety, and Mental Attitudes While Teaching English Online.