Are you a motivated professional who wants to earn an income teaching English to non-native English speakers? Are you passionate about the English language and have a demonstrated background in English writing, reading, and communicating?
You can gain the necessary qualifications to become a certified English tutor. The average ESOL teacher in Canada can earn anywhere from $42,969 to $61,425 per year.
The projected job outlook for ESOL teachers are positive for the next 10 to 15 years and offers private English tutors ample opportunity and job stability.
To become a sought-after English teacher, you will have to create a solid resume and online profile and demonstrate English skills for teaching English courses.
How can you prove your proficiency and show potential customers that you know the English language inside out, including grammar, vocabulary, speaking, reading and writing?
English tests, diplomas, and certificates allow you to gain an edge on the competition and recruit clients who want a certified instructor.
The qualifications needed to be an English teacher vary based on the age you’re teaching, geographical location, and the desired level of English.
Your qualifications will also influence the rate you can charge as an English teacher. Learn more about ESOL courses to increase job prospects, amass clients, and earn a higher salary.
Check for English courses in Toronto here.
TOEFL, TOEIC, GMAT: What is the Right English Exam For You?
The most well-known exams for testing proficiency in the English language include the TOEFL, TOEIC, and GMAT. These English certifications are internationally recognized and can open the doors to more opportunities as an English teacher.
It’s worthwhile to invest in a notable certification to reap the benefits. Certificates from international organizations and English universities may be more expensive than free online courses, but they tend to generate a lot of interest.
The TOEFL
The TOEFL is designed for individuals who aren’t native English speakers. This exam mainly focuses on speakers at a graduate level.
Princeton University hosts this exam, and it was created by ETS (Educational Testing Service) out of Princeton University.
The test format is multiple-choice and tests candidates on four key skills, including reading, listening, writing, and speaking.
You can complete the test in the following formats:
- On paper (PBT, out of 677 points)
- On the Internet (iBT, out of 120 points)
The iBT replaced an offline version taken on computers known as the CBT in 2006.
Completing the TOEFL will cost you approximately $245 in Canada for a three-to-four-hour exam.
You will receive a final score that ranks your results on a percentile scale against the other candidates. This is a unique format when compared to traditional pass-or-fail exams.
Find out how to become a successful English tutor.
The TOEIC
The TOEIC stands for “Test of English for International Communication”. This English exam is also hosted by the ETC and focuses on English for business management
To complete this exam, you must submit two papers:
- Listening and Reading (2 hours, scored out of 990)
- Speaking and Writing (1 hour 20 minutes, scored out of 400)
The results are presented in the form of a colour grade, with orange being the lowest and gold being the highest:
- Orange (10-215)
- Brown (220-465)
- Green (470-725)
- Blue (730-855)
- Gold (860-990)
This qualification is especially notable in Asian countries and can be weighed heavily in the hiring process for major companies.
The GMAT
The GMAT, or Graduate Management Admission Test, focuses on management or business school students who want to complete an MBA or post-graduate degree in business. The candidates are tested on reading and listening skills and graded and ranked between 200 and 800.
The results of the GMAT test are split across several sections:
- Analytics Writing Assessment (AWA): 30 minutes: 6 points
- Integrated Reasoning (IR): 12 questions, 20 minutes: 8 points
- Quantitative section: 37 questions, 1 hour 15 minutes, 60 points
- Verbal section: 41 questions, 1 hour 15 minutes, 60 points
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How Much English-speaking Experience Do You Need?
Different English certifications are needed based on your goals. For example, you would not typically need to complete the GMAT exam if you want to teach ESOL courses, but it would be necessary if you’re interested in teaching students how to pass the GMAT for their own academic pursuits.
The TOEIC is a good indicator of a person’s language ability when it comes to professional private tutorials, especially when teaching business English. This is a great course for aspiring ESOL tutors.
The TOEFL is likely the most optimal choice for individuals who want to teach English, create a stand-out online profile, and earn extra money.
Find out how to certify your level in English.
Is a Bachelor’s Degree in English Enough?
You do not need to have a Bachelor’s degree in English to teach English as a tutor in Canada. If you want to work independently as a sole proprietor and provide your services on a platform such as Superprof, you do not need a certificate. However, working for an academic institution or an agency will likely require a Bachelor’s degree in English or communications to certify your language abilities.
Being a tutor is about more than communicating a basic curriculum to your student. You must help students develop critical thinking skills, understand their unique learning styles, and empower them to achieve their academic goals.
If you have a Bachelor’s degree from a secondary school, that is an adequate educational background to become an online private tutor. However, an English certification will set you apart from the competition.
Read more about how to choose the right English language certifications.
The Best Tutoring Jobs for Native English Speakers
Numerous benefits come from speaking more than one language. The benefits of being bilingual include the following:
- Increase opportunities in the job market
- Keeps the brain healthy and sharp
- Gives you an academic advantage
- Increase your awareness of other cultures
- Improve travel experiences
- Open doors for international business ventures
Individuals born in English-speaking countries have an advantage when it comes to teaching private English tutorials. If your first language is not English, English qualifications may be even more valuable to you as an aspiring tutor.
If you’ve studied abroad or lived in English-speaking countries, this is an excellent point to add to your online teaching profile.
Do You Need English Teaching Qualifications?
An English degree is an attractive addition to a tutoring profile and can help you land lucrative private tutoring jobs at higher rates.
It’s usually expected that you’ve completed your university studies or at least have similar academic experience to certify your language skills.
If you didn't go to university, you would be expected to have at least taken English classes at an English school or have some kind of language-learning background.
The top higher education English programs in Canada are hosted at the following schools:
- University of Toronto
- McGill University
- University of British Columbia
- University of Alberta
- York University
Should You Pursue a Teaching Degree?
Teaching English as an online English tutor is a rewarding experience. Are you interested in helping non-English speakers improve their proficiency and further their education and career? Are you interested in furthering your career and earning an income from a flexible, online job?
Pursuing a teaching degree in English could be a great fit for you!
An English teaching degree can give you the credibility you need to become a confident teacher. You can learn how to build impactful curriculums, organize your time, and communicate better with your students.
An English teaching degree can also help you build an attractive job profile and market your qualifications to charge higher rates, find more students, and create a fruitful teaching career.
Is Tutoring a Promising Career in Canada?
Tutoring is a great career to take on. If you feel you should become a tutor, there are many reasons—tutors help students with varied academic challenges. More people consider the traditional classroom an old learning model. It is common for people to have a different take on a matter. Nevertheless, a tutor supports individual learning in a personalized way.
What Are the Benefits of Being an English Tutor?
You may need clarification on whether tutoring would be the right decision for you and how you can make the best of it in Canada. Of course, you may choose the career path, but the question always arises if the benefits outweigh the concerns. With this uncertainty, you should know the benefits. And how they can all be of significance to you.
- Work anywhere you want
Globally, millions of people are interested in learning the English language. As a result of the global interest, you stand a higher chance of working anywhere, even outside Canada. With an opportunity to do what you love, you can travel around the world and explore the beauty most places have to offer.
- Flexibility
Let's imagine getting paid under your terms and pace. Interesting right? Yes, with a tutoring job, you can work flexible hours based on your choice and get paid. This is one of the benefits of tutoring jobs— you do not need to work in a traditional office environment. You can offer services on various online platforms like Superprof.
- Entry-level jobs
It is usually challenging for many people to get jobs. Especially with the fact that employers tend to favor applicant who has experience in the field.
However, this is different for a tutoring job. There are tons of entry-level tutoring jobs available for beginners. You do not need to make a fuss or worry about work experience before you can get a job as a tutor.
- Save money
You can always have enough to save, take care of yourself, and manage your daily expenses as a tutor in Canada. The hourly rate is acceptable, and you can earn as much as you want based on how much time you can dedicate to teaching.
- Meet new people
Another benefit of tutoring is meeting new people and understanding how they learn about their interests and unique learning environment. With an opportunity like this, you may also develop your interpersonal skills.
How to Become a Better English Tutor and Enjoy the Tutoring Experience
Becoming a better English tutor goes beyond certification and popular demands. It spreads across various areas. Like what you can help your student achieve, your teaching method, and how you manage situations. Also, learning to become a better tutor is a continuous process. These are some of the tested steps to becoming a better tutor.
- Set goals
For every session of your class, make sure to set a goal. Haphazardly working will only take you a little distance. However, working with a purpose would give you more direction when tutoring your student. An example of setting a plan for a class session is— “the first session will cover the meaning of the English language, how many people speak the language, and the basics.”
Goal— Students should understand the basic principle of the English language, how many people talk about it, and its meaning. Here you have it. Keep your goals simple and achievable.
- Track progress
For every student you have as a tutor, you should always create an avenue to check their growth progress. Knowing where your student is on the growth track will help you understand their setbacks and how you can help them. In addition, with a functioning growth tracker, you can better monitor and create working strategies to help you tutor.
- Help meet requirements
Let's say your student has an assignment or a project to work on; one of the ways of helping the student is by assisting them in meeting the requirements for the project. So, for every problematic task, break it down and explain it in the simplest terms possible to help the student understand the scope and guidelines of the assignment better.
- Provide opportunities
While you are working towards achieving your class goal, you should also create opportunities for your student to try out class work and further enlighten their understanding of a topic. With endless opportunities to practice what they have learned, the student may perform better when they face similar cases in the future.
- Adapt to your student's needs
Each student has a need, and how you adapt to those needs could help you become a better tutor. Remember you are tutoring English, which is excellent! When you have international students who need an engaging way to learn, you can transcribe movies and songs. Also, you can give them as an assignment or classwork.
- Maintain a great communication strategy
A sound communication strategy effectively develops your career as a tutor. Even outside tutoring environments, communication is vital. For example, how well you communicate with your students will determine your level of understanding of their needs and how to meet them. Perhaps you are not great with communication; read books, watch videos, and listen to podcasts to improve your communication skills. In no time, you'd learn to communicate better.
What Are the Common Challenges Tutors Face?
- Lack of motivation
For many students, learning can be a problem. Usually, most students need more motivation to learn and keep learning new things.
However, when a tutor faces low-motivated students, a way to go about it is to know about each student's interests outside the class and find possible ways to synchronize learning with each person's interests.
- Stress and anxiety
Some students may be emotionally stressed or anxious over some personal matters. A typical example is a student who doesn't comprehend well in a traditional classroom setting and with low academic grades. Such students are often anxious and approach tutoring with emotional stress from past events. Students who face pressure and anxiety find it more challenging to learn.
Additionally, this is a challenge for any tutor. So, how do you get an emotionally stressed student to learn? It’s best to try and understand how they learn and look for ways to make learning more entertaining.
- Students who find trouble learning
Among the challenges tutors face while teaching are students who do not learn quickly or find trouble learning with other students. In addition, students may lack understanding of a subject due to no motivation like we discussed or just a general problem with performance. It's troublesome because you will have to spend time with the students and look for ways to enhance their learning.
- Poor foundations among students
This may not sound like a serious problem, but it is pretty severe and challenging for tutors to teach a student with a poor foundation. There would be many drawbacks as the student would need help to apply basic principles and understand how technical terms come about. Tutors must start from the basics and build a solid foundation for these students to build further knowledge.
Also, a poor foundation is often the reason for poor performance among students with outstanding prospects— with good resources and tutoring, these students could perform optimally.
How Much Does an English Tutor Earn in Canada
The income for an English tutor in Canada varies. On average, a tutor earns $22.50 per hour or $43,875 per year. However, the payment of an experienced tutor is about $66,300 per year.
Also, you may not begin to earn as you expected as you start your career. These are some of the hurdles you may face at the start of your career as a tutor. So while you are working towards getting better pay, you should also develop your skills (hard and soft) as a tutor; it would help you become a good tutor and earn better.
Where Can I Find a Tutor for Private Coaching?
Now that you know the requirements for becoming a professional English tutor in Canada, you may wonder where to start or the next step to take. Libraries are a great place to find students you can tutor and help achieve their goals.
Undoubtedly, you want a constant flow of income while you do what you love— while the library may be a great place to find students, it doesn't offer a continuous stream of students who needs tutors. A good place for a start is an online platform where students and tutors meet. All you need to do is create a unique profile that displays your qualities and how you can help your students meet their academic goals.
The Value of Professional Experience
How do you market yourself online to optimize your success as a teacher? How do you start gaining professional experience teaching English to non-native speakers?
The job market for Canadian English teachers is full of internationally recognized opportunities. Many non-native English speakers look for English teachers based in Canada because Canadians have a neutral accent valued around the world.
You can start teaching in Canada to gain professional experience and then relocate to other countries if you’re interested in travelling and broadening your market. Professional experience in an English-speaking country can be hugely beneficial. Especially if this comes with English-language immersion and intense study.
Whether you want to work remotely from Canada, teach students in person, or travel to new countries and teach in non-English speaking countries like France, Japan, and Brazil, there are many professional opportunities available to English tutors.
If you want to work as a teacher in a school, you’re going to have to complete exams and study hard to get a degree.
If you want to work as a private tutor, you can start by creating a profile on Superprof. You can teach primary school children without any qualifications. If you’re interested in working with adults, the TOEFL or TOEIC exams are highly recommended and can help you find more opportunities.
Spending time working and living in an English-speaking country can go a long way. It’s not just great for learning the language. You can also learn about the country and its culture while teaching others.
Start the exciting journey of teaching English by enrolling in ESOL courses and acquiring internationally recognized certificates.
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Excellent article!