10 Steps to a Successful ESL Tutoring
Business
Step One: Deciding to Have a Successful Tutoring Business
Introduction
The first step in starting and running a successful English as a Second Language
(ESL) tutoring business is deciding you want to do it. Since you’re reading this
book, you’ve probably already made this decision or you’re seriously considering
it.
Although private tutoring is more often a part-time rather than a full-time endeavor
for most folks, it’s still a professional career and should be given careful
consideration before making the decision to pursue it. Unfortunately, we often
don’t know what the considerations are to start and run our own tutoring business.
We’re often focused on the teaching aspects, e.g., how to teach the Present Perfect,
how to get students talking, etc. But the business side needs to be given at least the
same amount of consideration.
Of all the people who’ve signed up for the newsletter on my website
www.teaching-esl-to-adults.com, the number one reason for unsubscribing has
been that the person is no longer privately teaching because he or she couldn’t
make a go of it.
Thinking of a private tutoring practice as a business is, in my opinion, the best way
to succeed.
This chapter outlines the most important things you may want to consider when
making the decision, or strengthening your decision, to start and run your own
private ESL tutoring business.
Let’s get started.
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Considerations
The following is a list of questions to consider when making the decision to start
and run an ESL tutoring business. You need not answer affirmatively to them all,
or you may not know what each area entails, yet. You’ll get more information
about topics like marketing and record-keeping later in this book. Just keep these
topics in mind for now.
1. Do you love teaching?
2. Do you have qualifications to be an ESL tutor?
3. Do you have life experience to draw from?
4. How much money do you need to earn?
5. How do you feel about keeping records? Financial records? Student lesson
records?
6. How do you feel about marketing?
7. How much self-discipline do you have?
8. Do you know your self-worth as a professional?
Let’s take a look at each of these questions in more detail.
Eight Questions to Ask Yourself
1. Do you love teaching?
This question sounds like it should be a no-brainer. You may ask, “why would I
even consider it if I didn’t love it?” Remember, we’re talking about teaching in a
private setting. Some folks may have taught in the classroom and are now
considering private tutoring to small groups or one-on-one and may not yet have
this particular type of experience. For other folks, this might be a complete and
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total career change. Among the potential tutors I’ve consulted with are writers,
editors, lawyers and psychologists. For some reason, the idea of tutoring has
sparked something in them and it’s something they want to explore.
Whatever your background, if you haven’t had experience teaching ESL to small
groups or one-on-one then you could do some “research” to see how you like it by
finding a volunteer opportunity in your community.
Many cities have volunteer programs for people wanting or needing to learn
English. Churches, non-profits, libraries and YMCA/YWCAs are among the many
places to look for possible volunteer tutoring opportunities. Do a Google search; if
you don’t find listings for volunteer opportunities, look for places that teach
English and contact them to ask if they need any volunteers. Many such places run
on very little funding and are grateful for the help. You often don’t need any
teaching experience or qualifications to volunteer. You just need to be an English
speaker (preferably a native-English speaker) and have the time to commit.
Of course, if you don’t have paid or volunteer small group or one-on-one
experience, but do have the qualifications, you have the option of jumping right in
and finding out how you feel about it with your first few students.
If you don’t already have the qualifications, I think the wiser thing to do would be
to test it out before you invest in a certification program or acquire other
qualifications.
I do recommend that you give yourself the time and luxury of working with a few
different students, whether volunteering or tutoring for pay, to arrive at your
decision. When you’re first starting out, you may take on students that sour the
experience of teaching for you; it may not be about teaching, but about the
particular student(s) with whom you are working. After some time “on the job,”
you’ll learn (and have the luxury) to be more particular about the students with
whom you decide to work.
You may need to do some exploration to determine if you love teaching, but if due
to past experience, you know you love teaching then you’re set.
2. Do you have qualifications to be an ESL tutor?
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Chapter 2 goes into greater detail about ESL tutor qualifications. But in short, you
don’t need any particular qualifications. I know this may sound like blasphemy to
some folks, but remember I’m talking about being a private ESL tutor working
with individuals or small groups. Your prior work and life experience alone may
“qualify” you to be an ESL tutor. For example, someone who spent two years in
the Peace Corps teaching English is very likely “qualified” to teach ESL.
There are no government agencies that license ESL tutors.
certificates, or credentials are required to be a private ESL tutor.
No degrees,
If an individual wants to pay you to learn English from you or practice his or her
English with you, then that is between you and the individual. Incidentally, of the
hundreds of students I’ve worked with, not a single one has asked for proof of my
qualifications.
Having said the above, I want to clarify two points.
First, although you do not need to have a license or other designation to teach or
tutor ESL privately, you may be required by a government agency to have a
business license to run your tutoring business. Learn more about this in Chapter 3,
Setting Up Your Business.
Second, unless you feel confident that your previous life and/or work experience
qualify you to teach ESL, I strongly recommend that you acquire some
qualifications; this could be on-the-job experience, but quicker, and perhaps more
directly relevant, is a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)
certificate. Chapter 2 discusses this in more detail.
Acquiring a TESOL certificate serves two purposes: (1) you will learn a lot about
how to teach ESL; and (2) students tend to prefer tutors with certificates or other
such formal qualifications. When you advertise for students, you can say that you
are a “certified ESL tutor.” This may be only one of your many qualifications, but
all things being equal, it will likely bring you more students.
Interestingly, I have had more than one person with a MATESOL (this is a Master
of Arts degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) consult me
about how to teach ESL. Although they had a master’s degree in the field, they
still did not feel confident about actually teaching ESL. Unless you have other
reasons for studying for a MATESOL, I do not recommend that you pursue this as
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your primary qualification for private tutoring. It’s very expensive, and you don’t
need it. A good TESOL certification program will provide you almost all the skills
you need.
See Chapter 2 for a broader discussion of qualifications.
3. Do you have life experience to draw from?
One of the greatest assets a person can bring to a teaching practice is his or her life
experience. The more life experience, including jobs or careers, a person has had,
the more he or she has to offer students.
Here are two ways your life experience can benefit your teaching practice:
a. Many of the great number of life experiences a person has can be drawn
from when working with students. For example, one student I worked with
for quite a while was a university student majoring in Business
Administration. He initially came to me to help him improve his academic
writing. After some months, it was time for him to prepare a resume and
then prepare for job interviews. After he got a job, he came back to me to
help him with U.S. work culture – things like making small talk in the break
room, and writing emails with the appropriate tone. Fortunately, I’ve had
life experience in all of these areas and was able to help this student
throughout our time together.
The chances are good that you’ve personally had many life experiences; and
although you might not be an expert, you very likely have more knowledge
and experience in some areas than your potential students and can, therefore,
offer this to them.
b. In your marketing to students, you can refer to your past experience. For
example, if you worked in Information Technology (IT), you might want to
mention this in your advertising if you are targeting IT professionals; or if,
for example, you’ve had a career as a lawyer, you might want to mention
this as potential students are often impressed by such careers and are more
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likely to want to work with you than with someone who does not have this
experience.
If you are younger and have not yet accumulated a lot of life experience(s), don’t
worry. You still have the main skills for which potential students will seek you
out, i.e., your English language skills and the potential to teach. Also, very often
you will at least have been living in the U.S. (or other primarily English speaking
country) for longer than your potential students. You have a lot of experience that
you may not even recognize yet.
4. How much money do you need to earn?
As a self-employed tutor running your own business, your income is not as reliable
as a steady paycheck from a company (although that’s not necessarily a guarantee
either!). There are no “sick days” or paid vacation days. There are no other
traditional benefits such as health insurance or long-term care disability insurance.
There are no retirement benefits.
The money you earn is dependent upon the number of lessons you teach and how
much you charge. If a student doesn’t show up for a lesson, you don’t get paid
(although I’ll show you how to mitigate this problem in Chapter 9). Self-employed
tutors often spend a lot of time trying to get new students in order to increase their
income and replace other students who have moved on.
So while you can charge a relatively hefty hourly rate, this does not guarantee that
you will earn as much money as you would like. Additionally, you will not
necessarily earn money for all the time that you are working. For a person tutoring
“full-time,” i.e., 35 to 40 hours per week, remember that you have to spend “face
time” with students in order to actually get paid. If you spend 35 to 40 hours per
week working with students, you will have to spend additional time doing lesson
preparation. This could make for a very long workweek.
Most private tutors have a part-time practice; that is, they work directly with
students only part time, although they may actually spend enough hours on lesson
preparation that it seems like a full-time practice. In fact, this could be considered
a full-time practice, but the income will only be a part-time income.
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The tutor looking to earn only a part-time income and/or one who has additional
resources will have a lot more flexibility in his or her private tutoring business.
5. How do you feel about keeping records? Financial records? Student
lesson records?
Running a successful tutoring business requires maintenance of financial records
and student records.
As a private tutor running your own business, you are self-employed and
technically should treat your endeavor as a business. This means keeping some
sort of financial records and filing tax returns as a self-employed person. Your
financial records could be as simple as writing receipts for students in a stationary
store receipt book with duplicates. To minimize your taxes, you also want to keep
records of your expenses, e.g., copies, advertising, books, etc. (Don’t let this scare
you off! We’ll be discussing this in greater detail in future chapters.)
A tutor also needs to keep records of his or her lesson plans and what he or she has
covered with each student. You could conceivably be working with the same
student one, two and even three years or more. It’s a best practice to keep good
records of what you’ve taught right from the first lesson.
See Chapter 7, Keeping Financial and Student Records, and Chapter 3, Setting Up
Your Business, for more details.
6. How do you feel about marketing?
As a self-employed tutor running your own business, you have to find your
students. This means you have to tell the world, or at least your target geographic
location, what you have to offer.
Many people feel turned off by the concept of “marketing” and asking for
business, but it’s something you have to make peace with to have a successful
tutoring business, or any business.
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I often hear marketing described by some of the more successful marketing gurus
as just “talking about something you love.” Thinking about it this way has made it
easier for me.
We’ll talk more about marketing in Chapter 5, but for now, just keep in mind that
running a successful tutoring business requires some form of marketing and
advertising, especially when you’re just starting your business.
7. How much self-discipline do you have?
Any business owner must have a higher than average level of self-discipline in
order to be successful. A successful tutoring business requires discipline and
initiative not only to show up on time, but to prepare lesson plans, do marketing,
return emails and phone calls, etc. Probably the only “real” deadline you’ll have is
the time you have to be present for your lessons, which you are also responsible for
scheduling. Otherwise, most of your deadlines will have to be set and met by you
with no one following up to make sure you’ve followed through.
Some level of self-discipline is a must to be a successful ESL tutor in private
practice.
8. Do you know your self-worth as a professional?
The tutoring profession is just that: a profession. A successful professional acts
like a professional and knows his or her self-worth as a professional.
When I say, “act like a professional,” that could mean many different things
because we all have different styles of being in the world; we also have different
types of students with whom we work and who have different expectations. One
professional may wear a tie to a lesson, another could wear shorts and a t-shirt (not
recommended in most cases!). You will have to judge the situation for yourself.
The common denominator of successful professionals is that they value themselves
and what they have to offer.
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Even if you are just starting out, you have to trust yourself, value yourself, your
skills, and your knowledge. You will not know all the answers when you first start
tutoring, or ever, really. That’s okay. You’ll be able to find the answers and bring
them back to your students.
You might be a little nervous when you start out, or every time you meet a new
student even after you’ve been tutoring for a while. That’s okay; even doctors and
lawyers call their professions a “practice.” They don’t know all the answers, but
they know how to find them.
You must also value your time as a professional. If someone makes an
appointment with you, expect them to respect your time and keep the appointment.
By the way, it’s my belief that one important quality of an outstanding professional
tutor is that he or she also knows the worth of and values his or her students’
knowledge and life experience.
Please see Chapter 9 for a more thorough discussion on professionalism.
Wrap Up
So, do you think you have what it takes to run a successful tutoring business?
Remember, you don’t have to answer affirmatively to all of the above questions;
we’ll go more deeply into each of these areas in this book. These are just things to
consider as you decide if this is what you want to do, and also to help guide you
toward running a successful tutoring business from the start.
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