7 Steps to Start your ESL Academy
New year. New energy. New GOALS! đź’Ş
Are you ready to take your teaching career to the next level and become an independent online teacher this year? The transition from being a contracted teacher to running your own ESL academy can be a daunting journey, but it can also be an exciting and rewarding career path!
Making the move from working for a company to running your own ESL school requires careful planning and setup to ensure your success in the competitive world of online ESL education. In this guide, we’ll walk you through seven essential steps to get you started on the path to success from employee to ESL empire!
1. Define your Teaching Niche:
The first step in establishing your independent online teaching venture is to define your teaching style, class structure, and dream student. Decide on your target audience: which age groups and language-proficiency levels do you want to teach, does your dream student hail from a specific country, and will you be specialising in specific language skills, like phonics for beginners or business English lessons? A refined teaching niche will make it easier for students who are looking for your specific skills to find you. Having a teaching niche will also help you streamline your lesson preparation and teaching skills so that you become the go-to expert in your field. Remember, as an independent online ESL teacher, YOU are the product. Highlight what makes your services unique and why students should choose you over other educators. Whether it’s your teaching style, your impressive accolades, your sparkly personality, or a special teaching approach, your unique selling proposition (USP) is what sets you apart from your competitors.
2. Build your Brand:
Building a brand is an integral part of becoming a successful independent online ESL teacher. Define your brand colours, select a memorable academy name, and even consider adding a fun mascot to make your brand more engaging and relatable to your students. A strong brand presence will help you stand out in a competitive market and help students recognise your unique offerings. A basic brand guideline consisting of a colour palette, two to three font styles and an eye-catching logo will make it easy to create consistent marketing material and other digital content for your school. Consistent branding will also look far more professional to potential students. Take your teaching niche into consideration when setting up your brand identity. If your goal is to teach young learners, you’ll want to use bright, fun, and playful colours and fonts. If you’re aspiring to reach a mature audience, or teach IELTS exam prep, then you’ll want to create a professional, minimalistic brand identity that inspires confidence and trust. If you need inspiration for coming up with a brand character, you can read about Crystal Clear’s loveable brand characters here.
3. Set up Protocol and Pricing:
Having clear protocol in place will help you maintain consistency in your teaching approach and make it easier to manage your teaching schedule – and finances. Decide your working hours, cancellation policies, payment terms and conditions, classroom rules and how much you want to charge for lessons. Will you be offering a free trial class, discounted bundle packages, and a loyalty program to returning students? These are the questions that need answering before you sign on your first student. It’s a good idea to create a PDF of your academy’s protocols and pricing with a program like Canva that you can send to potential students and parents when they enquire about your services. Here’s a quick check-list of things to include in your academy’s protocol:
After setting up your academy’s protocols, read this Crystal Clear blog post for handy upselling tips and tricks for recruiting and retaining students.
4. Set Up Payment Systems & Invoicing:
As much as teaching is a profession of passion, it needs to pay the bills and support your financial goals. It’s crucial to set up efficient payment systems to ensure that you receive your earnings promptly and provide a hassle-free experience for your students when making payments for your services. If your master plan is to teach Chinese students, you can use Crystal Clear’s China Payments Portal to handle your payments swiftly and securely. Make sure you are set up with a reliable payment gateway, like PayPal or Wise Bank, that accepts payments from international accounts.
Invoicing is an essential administrative task for any business. Some virtual classrooms, like Koala, offer in-house invoicing tools, which can streamline your academy’s admin tasks. You can also use Canva to create professional PDF invoices to send directly to students. A professional invoice template should include your contact information, payment details, a breakdown of your payment terms and a link to your contract. It’s a good idea to take payments upfront from new students to prevent awkward conversations after you’ve delivered your lessons. As an independent ESL teacher, you’ll be responsible for keeping a record of payments and tracking your business’s income and expenses for tax purposes. Set up a spreadsheet of your business’s monthly overhead costs and keep track of payments to ensure that your ESL academy is profitable.
5. Select a Virtual Classroom Platform:
Choosing the right virtual classroom platform is crucial for delivering high-quality online lessons and providing a seamless learning experience for your students. Research and select a platform that aligns with your teaching style and technology preferences. Ensure that your virtual classroom has the necessary features for interactive and effective lessons, such as video conferencing, whiteboard tools, and screen sharing or a co-browser. Koala and SuperTeacher are two of our favourite virtual classrooms to use with Crystal Clear’s lesson materials. Both Koala and SuperTeacher support interactivity for students using handheld devices and offer built-in invoicing and other tools to streamline your academy’s admin! You can learn more about other popular virtual classroom platforms here.
6. Secure a Curriculum Sidekick:
Creating your own teaching materials can be very time-consuming, especially amidst the other day-to-day tasks required of an academy boss. This is where a pre-planned curriculum comes in! Having a curriculum sidekick, like Crystal Clear ESL, will save you hours of lesson prep time, allowing you to focus on what you do best – delivering exceptional learning experiences! A well-designed pre-planned curriculum provides a clear and structured learning path for your students and ensures learning objectives and language-learning milestones are met. Having a recognised and reputable curriculum can also be a selling point when marketing your ESL teaching services.
7. Get visible with marketing material and a website:
Visibility is the key to attracting potential students, so you’ll need to put yourself out there on the big wide web for students to know about your services. A dedicated website is a powerful tool to showcase your expertise and attract new students, plus it will give you an extra nod of professionalism. If you feel overwhelmed just by the thought of having to create a website, don’t exit this page just yet – let me introduce you to Tim! Tim’s Website in a Weekend service will help you build a professional, user-friendly website that attracts your ideal students. Your website should include information about your services, pricing, and contact details to make it easy for potential students to reach out to you. Remember that dream student we spoke about in the very first point of this blog? Where you market your services will depend on your target audience. Take into consideration where your ideal student or their parents will spend most of their time when they’re on their phones. Social media, like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, are great places to advertise your services, but if your goal is to teach Chinese students, XiaoHongShu will probably become your new virtual hangout spot. Friends of Crystal Clear, Kinga & Chris from Create & Funnel run regular XiaoHongShu bootcamps to teach independent ESL teachers how to leverage Chinese social media to fill their teaching schedule.
The journey to become a freelance ESL tutor can be an exciting and rewarding venture, and the Crystal Clear team is here to cheer you on every step of the way! By following these 7 essentials steps and putting in the necessary groundwork, you’ll be well on your way to establishing a successful ESL empire and taking back your independence!
