How to teach English online: a complete guide to starting and growing

If you are figuring out how to teach English online, the good news is that the upfront investment is small. The bad news is that students notice right away when the audio cuts out or the picture freezes. Prioritize in this order: audio, internet, lighting and, only then, the camera.

For reference: Zoom recommends 3.8 Mbps up and 3.0 Mbps down for 1080p video in a one-on-one call. What usually ruins a lesson is an unstable connection, not the advertised speed, so test it at the time of day you will be teaching.

Your surroundings matter too: a neutral background, no street noise and a closed door solve most problems. Silence your phone and let the people you live with know your teaching hours.

If you teach everyone, you compete with everyone. Having a niche does not mean turning students away; it means knowing who you are talking to in your profile, your content and your materials. The four most common:

Choose based on what you already know well and enjoy teaching. If you spent years in a corporate job, business English is a natural edge. With kids, what counts is consistency and showing progress to parents clearly.

Online lessons tire people out faster than in-person ones, so pacing is everything. A structure that works for most levels has five stages:

This sequence is a variation of PPP (presentation, practice, production), a model widely used in language teaching: first the student sees the structure, then practices it with support and, finally, uses the language more freely. In one-on-one lessons you can flip the order when the student already knows the topic: start with production, watch for mistakes and only then present what was missing.

Always have one extra activity ready and mark what can be cut. Leftover material is better than leftover silence.

A simple rule for conversation lessons: the student should talk more than you. If you finish the lesson hoarse and they barely spoke, it was your lesson, not theirs.

A PDF shared on screen works, but it keeps the student passive. Interactive material is anything the student clicks, drags, types or answers while you see it live. That changes the dynamic: instead of asking whether they understood, you see whether they got it right.

• Use games with a purpose. A quiz for review, matching for new vocabulary, jumbled sentences for word order.
• Keep activities short. Five to ten minutes per game keeps the energy up without eating the lesson.
• Reuse. A good vocabulary game works for several students at the same level.
• Send it home. What you did in class can become practice between lessons.

We put together 14 ideas that work live, with the level, skill and time for each one, in our guide to games for online English lessons.

To teach online, you need to cover five jobs. Each one has a popular tool, and that is where the trouble starts.

Add it all up and it is common to have the call, whiteboard, game, calendar, spreadsheet and chat open at once. Every tab switch costs attention, yours and the student's, and every tool is one more login for them to remember. The cost does not show up on an invoice: it shows up as a lesson that loses momentum.

Some teachers prefer to assemble their own toolkit, others prefer everything in one place. To compare both paths, see Ludi or Zoom, Kahoot and Hotmart.

A trial lesson is not just any free lesson. It is a diagnostic conversation with a sample of your method. The student should leave knowing where they are, where they can get to and how you will take them there.

1. Before: ask by message about their goal, deadline and past experience with the language.
2. First 10 minutes: talk to assess their level without turning the conversation into a test.
3. Middle of the lesson: run a short activity from your method, ideally interactive, on a topic the student cares about.
4. Last 10 minutes: give a plain-language diagnosis (what is already good and what is missing) and present a plan with frequency and lesson length.
5. Close: present the price and package format naturally and agree on the next step.
6. After: within 24 hours, send a written summary with the proposed plan.

Decide in advance whether the trial will be paid, free or shorter. All three work; what does not work is deciding on the spot with no criteria.

Your hourly rate is only the starting point. It has to cover taxes, tools, prep time and the lessons students cancel. We built a step-by-step calculation in the guide how much to charge for private lessons.

Once you set your rate, sell packages instead of single lessons. A package gives you predictability and creates commitment on the student's side. See how to build yours in how to put together a lesson package.

Your first students almost always come from your own network. After that, growth comes from three sources: referrals, content and the places where students look for teachers.

• Your close network: tell friends, former colleagues and past students that you have open slots and who the lessons are for.
• A public profile: a page with your photo, niche, method, price and availability, to send as a link.
• Content: short tips on Instagram, LinkedIn or YouTube, aligned with your niche.
• Marketplaces: platforms such as Preply and italki bring demand, but they charge a commission and give you less control over the relationship.

We cover each channel, with ready-to-send messages, in how to find private students.

Even with a student you know, put it in writing: price, payment method, cancellation and rescheduling, package validity and price adjustments. There is a template to adapt in private lesson contract template.

If you teach from Brazil, many teachers consider opening a business registration (CNPJ) to issue invoices and pay into social security. The guide MEI for private teachers explains what to check before choosing a tax setup. If your students live abroad, see also how to get paid by students abroad.

In private lessons, students rarely ask for a diploma: they want results. Still, a recognized certification helps you stand out, especially on marketplaces, at schools and with students from other countries. The best known for teaching English:

Generic TEFL or TESOL certificates sold online vary widely in hours and recognition. Before paying, check how many hours the course has, whether it includes practice with real learners and who recognizes it.

• Charging per lesson with no cancellation policy. Your schedule becomes a lottery, and so does your income.
• Talking more than the student. Over-explaining feels generous, but it takes practice time away from the student.
• Preparing everything from scratch every week. Build a library of materials by level and reuse it.
• Serving any audience. Without a niche, your profile and your content speak to no one.
• Not tracking progress. Without notes, you forget what you corrected and the student cannot see their own growth.
• Skipping the formal side. Contracts, receipts and taxes feel like red tape until the first problem.

Ludi is a Brazilian platform built for language teachers who teach online. The idea is to bring into one dashboard, under your brand, what usually lives across several tabs:

• A live classroom with a synced whiteboard, where you show materials and games to the student.
• An editor for interactive activity sheets and slides, with PDF and image import.
• Six game templates (quiz, matching, spin the wheel, flashcards, unjumble and complete the sentence) plus AI-generated games that you review before using.
• Scheduling with recurring lessons and built-in billing, with a dashboard that shows what has come in and what is still owed.
• A student app with guided practice, XP and rankings between lessons.
• A storefront to sell e-books, material packs or recorded courses, with a 5% fee.

AI helps you build activities and summarize the lesson, with consent, but you are the one teaching. You can start for free; plans and limits are on the teacher plans page.