Top 20 Freelance Teaching Skills in 2024 [Updated]

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What is Freelance Teaching?

The term “Freelancing” means it is offering services to the different organization and get an income by working flexible hours from any corner of your residence or chosen location like a coffee shop, library, etc.

If you are into the teaching profession and due to some personal commitments, you cannot go for 9 to 5 jobs, opting to earn extra income by virtually teaching students at your own suitable time means Freelancing Teaching.

Reason Why it is Growing?

With the advance in the technology and demand for online education growing, more and more teachers are opting for virtual teaching these days.

With COVID -19 situation and current job scenario, unemployment, Freelancing teaching 2020 has further pushed and has opened an opportunity to enhance your skills and opportunity to earn extra income. Over some time, Freelancing teaching has gained traction and will be further expanding though it has helped professionals for personal growth despite working remotely.

Based on economic times published in Feb 2020 In India, schemes like Start-up India, Skill India, and Digital India encourage young individuals to start their businesses and work as freelancers and also opens the door for teaching professionals.

Many schools, institutes are opting for the freelance option due to space cost-saving and saving overheads.

People consider it as the freedom to work independently, allowing them to reach the student for those subjects is of their interest to teach.  It helps to work at their own convenient or flexible time, it saves work travel time, can manage both personal and organization goals along with extra income, can achieve work-life balance

The organization supporting Teachers to upskill themselves to teach online.

Pearson India has come up with Online Teacher Training to make them comfortable with teaching online environment. They have online trained over 1000+ teachers through digital platforms/devices during COVID-19.

They also provide access to apps like Quikik, ActiveApp, MyPedia Alexa, MyInsights as training material for teachers and interactive learning solutions for students. 

Prolear Tutor is a platform for freelance, trainers, teachers, to create their own tutorials. The teachers and students both can subcribe[VP1]  to this platform and can do teaching online

Virtual Teaching experiences: What’s it like to be a Teacher in the coronavirus Pandemic?

What are the Skills or Pre-requisite this Virtual Teaching Demands?

• Qualification – Certification on the specific field of expertise or specialization in a subject or a degree in  ESL Msc. MTech, BTech, BSC, Psychology counseling, and the list is endless

If one is interested in teaching English languages to those countries wherein the English language is not the primary or a second teaching language then TESOL and TEFL certification are necessary.

• Time management skills: Being punctual and providing quality work is a sign of true professionalism. Sticking to the deadline and completing the syllabus. Setting a fixed number of hours and being organized. Maintaining a to-do list and prioritizing topics or subjects. Making use of a time management app for reminders and follows up.

• Self-Motivated: Being self-motivated is of utmost importance to make the learning process more engaging and deal with students with enthusiasm.
• Communication skills: Strong written and verbal communication skill is required to provide clear instructions on the schedule of the class, laying guidelines, Proper Communication helps to understand the student well and their study concerns. Through interactive sessions like quizzes, tests improve their engagement level and the learning process becomes more valuable. Good communication skills are the basic need for the academic success of students. It helps to update parents on students’ progress, areas of improvement, any misbehavior or convey messages regarding any learning problem. A successful teacher is one who can effectively read, write, speak, or interact and listen.
• Student engagement skills – This will allow students to feel comfortable, Building rapport so that student approaches without any hesitation. Acknowledgment and appreciation in their progress or small improvements also help to boosts their confidence and engagement in studies. 
• Patience and Empathy: The most important quality of the teacher is to have Patience and empathy. It not only builds a good relationship between teachers and students but it also helps to understand students well. Dealing them with care and compassion helps them to succeed in school
• Planning skills – Planning the study material is the key to stick to the planned schedule and helps timely referrals. They have to beforehand put together the material and resources of the lesson.
• Technology sound – Being active on social networking sites with various institutes and sharing profiles, through audio or video helps to share the content or to advertise themselves regularly.
• Create a profile on various freelancing job websites. Tools that can further help Freelancing teaching:
  • Rubric – It is a mark scoring tool, this tool can capture the test marks of the students
  • By Conducting lecture through Zoom and skype
  • Using software to prepare course learning material through a Courseware
  • Usage of software Seg google form to prepare MCQ (Multiple Choice Question)

• Connections: Make groups or communities and make connections, be in constant touch with institution schools, colleges, and students thru LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, create a network, and advertising their services on social network sites.
  • Good Profile – Resumes providing academic records and specialization and work experience attract parents, students, schools, or colleges.

How they have Widened their Visibility Among Institutions, Students, Schools, and Colleges?

1. With technology: Increasing visibility through social networking like Facebook, Linked In, Instagram, writing blogs on teaching experience. Creating a portfolio/profile which has information about the degrees, Registering online with freelancing teaching website to widen student approach.
2. Showcasing how they can make a difference in the development of the student by emphasizing on unique teaching techniques which will include consistent progress check or support child to develop in the areas they are weak. Ensuring them with extra reference study material and assisting them for exam preparation.
3. Registering online with the websites as an online tutor, creating a tutor profile with details on specialization subjects or what classes/courses they want to teach, Teaching experience, preferred timings for tuitions, and the salary desired. Once the site verifies the respective profile on their portal, the interested students get in touch with the freelancing teachers.

Few sites which teachers can register themselves :

1. Superprof.co.in/tutor
2. Ipractice.com
3. Whitehatjr
4. Udemy
5. Take Lessons
6. Verbling
7. Datacamp
8. Musika
9. Codecademy
10. So learn
11. Udacity

Challenges in Freelancing Teaching faced to a certain extend  

• Job Insecurity – there is a lot of uncertainties about the job, which gives rise to job insecurity
• No employee benefits, EPF, medical insurance, gratuity, etc
  • Inconsistent work – There would be times when flooded with work and at times will have nothing major work.

• Lack of face to face learning, human connection is something missing or collaborative learning or in a group.  Also is hinders in understanding students grasping or understanding abilities, chances of Students getting distracted and getting bored and teacher might not realize that. Hands on learning difficult subjects like science experiments or Laboratory or Maths Lab. Teachers supervision whether the student is attentive or not.
• Network Connectivity issue can be an obstacle or causing delays in completion of task.

How Freelancing has helped in effective Teaching.

1. It has given flexibility to work from home and manage work-life balance
2. They can have complete control on the Course schedule, Teaching fees and teaching method 
3. Collaborative Learning can be overcome with advanced platforms like Google Docs, google drive, google form, MS team, Skype, Zoom. The learner gets the opportunity to learn and discuss, and listen to others, and have a fruitful learning experience. They can stay connected to their clients through Platforms such as Zoom, Skype which makes life easy for Freelancer teachers
4. It can teach only those subjects which they prefer teaching and free themselves from boredom, for example, if someone with B.ED qualification not necessarily has to teach in school or college if he/she aspires to conduct workshops on Life skills for young students or Adults.
5. Recording of lecture helps the learners to revisit the topic for better clarity or if they have missed something. On the other hand, teachers will be relieved of not repeating the same lesson repeatedly.

Check Out The Global Ranking For Best TEFL Certification

Other Areas Explored

• Competitive Exam Preparation – Based on the specialization the online tutor can help students to ace the competitive entrance exam to mention some UPSE, ISS, IES, CDSE, GATE, CTE, CAT, GMAT, JEE Main, Jee Advanced, AIPMT, AIIMSetc.

• Performing Arts & Music teaching: Freelancing teaching is possible for not only scholastic subjects but co-scholastic areas such as fine and performing arts. The online platform has given a boost to provide tutorials on dance & music with the help of zoom or skype etc.

•  Online Physical Fitness trainer – Today people are getting aware day by day how important is to keep the fitness level high to fight the increasing stress through exercise or yoga benefits in resolving the following issues like Blood pressure issue, boost good cholesterol and improve blood circulation. There is an increase in demand for digital fitness training, which is feasible for both the learner and the instructor. One with a certified fitness degree can carry this profession online.

•   Online Mental well-being couch – Many people are constantly in the grip of anxiety, fear, or getting a panic attack, mood swings, depression,  insecurity, restlessness, hopelessness. Through Digitization patients can consult counselors online for any Mental health issues.

• Life skills trainer – A Life skill trainer is the one who prepares students to face challenges. Their training includes teaching skills like building focus, facing challenges, critical thinking, building relationships, enhancing communication skills.

• Motivational Speaker:  The one who knows the area of expertise or niche, with good public speaking skills, and who knows his target audience well, can make his career in Freelancing as a Motivational speaker.

• Promoting the teaching materials: Many teachers with many years of teaching experience are selling their lesson online it sounds tedious or a lot of work like compiling the study material and upload and then promote the teaching material, But tools like Canva has made this task easy and possible for inline tutors..

• Kids workshop with study difficulty – With the platform like Coursera and Udemy you can perform online workshop for the student with difficulty in reading and writing or learning disabilities.
• Technical skill trainer – One who prepares the training materials for teaching technologies like programming skills AI, Big Data, Python, Auto CAD Machine Learning, Google Cloud, Blockchain. 
• Technical content writer – To create instruction or learning content for learning portal on IT subjects like Java, PHP, for teaching technologies or programming skills AI, Big Data, Python, Auto CAD Machine Learning, Google Cloud, Blockchain.
• Test Scorer: Educational Testing Service (ETS) is always looking for online and onsite test scores for the TOEFL, GRE, and other tests are generally done and they require to do such tasks as a part-time.
• Questionnaire developers – Preparing questionaries’ on topics like Situation, Judgement, verbal reasoning, decision making, reading comprehension or Abstract reasoning or quantitively reasoning
• Blogger/Writer: Sharing  knowledge by building up an educational topic or make a blog on simplifying algebra, geometry, chemical reactions, physics subjects, etc 
• Coaching to other fresher teachers – Training aspiring teachers on an effective freelancing teaching course.
• Career counselor – guiding confused students to make the correct career choice based on their abilities and passion, this can be further promoted by social networking through advertising on programs conducted on career counseling. 

Any Idea how freelancing teaching remuneration happens? And How do they earn?

• Paid on an hourly basis, but their skills, work experience, online availability, language is known and expertise also matter.
• Paypal is the common platform to receive the payment from the client after completion of the task as per the deadline.

• A platform like PAYTM, Google pay, Generating UPI ID, Bank NEFT Transfer make it easier to get their fixed payments
• Via Escrow Account: In this type of client pays to an Escrow account and not to the service provider, as per the terms agreed in the agreement, once the tutor delivers say content writing on some Technical subject, then they get paid accordingly.

With some tutoring experience in a particular subject, they earn by Signing up on websites like MyPrivateTutor.com, BharatTutors.com, tutorindia.net as an online tutor, creating the profile, mentioning the subject they desire to teach, qualification and teaching experience which is mandatory to update.

Approx. Earnings: Those who are beginners can earn around Rs 200 per hour, which can further increase to Rs 500 as they gain experience and expertise,For those who do specialization or competitive subjects, the fees would be further higher.

Conclusion: The future of Freelancing teaching in 2020 looks bright, due to factors like technology, Digital advancement,  Collaborative tools, and freedom to work at that their own pace and requirement and a decent pay package. The concept of Co-working spaces has further eased Freelancers who cannot work from home due to disturbance or distraction by kids or household chores.  Overall it appears millennials will opt for freelancing teaching.

Also Check this Video

Recommended Read:
– What is TEFL Certification
– Top 10 TEFL Certification Program in 2021
– Top 5 Programs to Get Your TEFL Certification in South Africa
– Top 50 Best TEFL Certification Courses
– TEFL Vs. TESOL

 

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