With the rise of online platforms to teach English, online tutoring has driven a burgeoning interest. Yet, going for it alone might be a tough task. Setting upon a teaching online experience as an EFL or ESL tutor is strikingly different from founding your own business. An independent English teacher has a great degree of autonomy unlike a salaried tutor in a teach-online company. The ups and downs of EFL industry online are a cornucopia of opportunity for both options. Both of them are similar in that they maximize your flexibility and options compared with their brick-and-mortar counterparts.

Face to face teaching and online tutoring
Teacher turnover at schools in these days is extremely high, and it becomes somehow hard for teachers to change positions easily. Teachers may have to buy a plane ticket and abandon their positions if disappointing circumstances did loom large. On the flip side, changing teaching positions online is less demanding in the sense that the teacher does neither need to buy a plane ticket or secure an employment visa.
Similarly, running your own school needs expensive undertaking and additional efforts. Things as utilities, staff, books, furniture and plenty of other needs might cost an arm and a leg. Costs associated with running an online teaching business, on the other hand, are somehow minor.
One way in which the two differ is in the area of customer service. This encompasses plenty of aspects related mainly to the company’s operations. An online tutor needs to provide engaging EFL or ESL materials to a paying customer, but the customer service, namely billing, complaints and promotions, is handled by other employees of the company. An independent entrepreneur has to manage all of these alone, and these activities can be time-consuming.
Online Tutoring
Starting to teach online is often a slow and challenging process. A journey as such needs more than lessons, EFL worksheets and talents in management. A successful experience means both time and strenuous efforts, and if the business is sound, it may thrive as the number of customers multiplies. There is a great potential that a lucrative online venture becomes a full-time job or even a monomania, and that is fine for some people.
The failure rate of this kind of business is relatively high. Working for a company, on the other hand, is less demanding and mainly less consuming. Work days or work hours are generally flexible the fact that makes the whole activity looks like a part-time job.

How easy is it to go for an online position alone?
Going for an online experience alone, you will possibly enjoy more freedom in terms of curriculum designing. As an entrepreneur, you can select the materials and the level that go in accordance with the students’ needs. Yet, as an instructor at a company, you generally follow certain directives and guiding lines that the company or organization stresses, and this can include the curriculum and even placement tests. Of courses, in plenty of instances, there are some employers, who allow or even encourage a degree of creativity by the instructors.
Another issue is career development that can notably identify the success or failure of both institutions. Teach Online TEFL has recently become a rapidly changing phenomenon for the rising interest among EFL instructors to refresh their teaching abilities and of course knowledge. Reputable online companies provide training for their teachers, and this usually includes the use of different platforms, textbooks, online data and other related things. On the flip side, there is relatively little training for online entrepreneurs.
A proficient EFL online entrepreneur must be adept at a variety of tasks. Acquiring the expertise needed to excel in all of these areas takes both time and energy. For the audacious few who possess the myriad skills required, opening your own online school may be the best alternative. The vast majority of teachers, however, are probably better off, at least initially, working for a reputable company.
Reference:
Zimmermann, S. “Teach Online for a Company”. EFL Magazine. https://www.eflmagazine.com/, 2020.