Category: Teaching

The importance of teacher-led CPD

TESOL International Association is a community of ELT professionals. This association is involved in numerous activities, including publishing TEIS News, which is a newsletter edited by the Teacher Educator Interest Section. When I was asked to contribute to its latest issue, I was more than happy to say yes. You can read my article here, and I recommend that you check out the other contributions as well.

The importance of teacher-led CPD (TEIS News)

I decided to focus on teacher-led CPD, which means taking responsibility for your own development as an ELT professional. This topic is close to my heart because I’ve managed to make decent career progress while living in Colombia, a developing country in which you’re not likely to get much support in terms of CPD if you work for a run-of-the-mill language academy. With the exception of a month-long holiday in Europe, I’ve continuously lived in Colombia since 2017, and I hope that my article can provide some hope to those who wish to develop professionally without having to move to another part of the world.

The TEIS News article is based on my own experience, and I’d like to take this opportunity to provide more details about my own journey. I have no problem admitting that the COVID-19 pandemic was extremely beneficial for my ELT career. Yes, I didn’t enjoy the lockdowns and not being able to travel freely, but I spent those two years working on increasing my chances of succeeding in our profession.

First of all, I was able to finish my Delta from my living room. There aren’t any Module Two providers in Colombia, so I originally planned to do the module in Mexico and actually had my interview with IH Mexico right before the pandemic reached Latin America. I managed to complete my M2 with this course provider a year later fully online, which was extremely convenient in terms of reduced costs since I didn’t need to pay for flights and accommodation. The only Delta module that now requires you to do something in person is the first one, which involves taking the exam at an authorised centre. Fortunately, they are usually easy to find in major cities.

IH Mexico runs the fully online CELTA as well, and being able to get Cambridge qualifications from home without worrying about a huge time difference is a great opportunity for those who don’t have any course providers in their location. Having just a bachelor’s degree and a generic TEFL certificate usually isn’t enough; you need to do much more to stand out, and holding an internationally recognised qualification is usually a step that can’t be skipped.

It has to be said that high-quality courses or degrees aren’t cheap, especially for someone who gets paid in Colombian pesos. What I will mention here is that it is necessary to consider the return on investment. Getting a Delta costs a lot of money, but if you play your cards right, it will open some interesting doors for you. In my case, the Delta gave me the confidence to start freelancing and looking for my own students. It also helped me land some very interesting contracts with institutions, so even though it took me a while to figure everything out, the results were pretty impressive: when I checked my bank account two years after obtaining my Delta certificate, I realised that just one month of my freelance work can generate the same income as what I used to earn in half a year as a language academy employee.

I’m certainly not an advocate of reckless spending, but sometimes it’s necessary to bite the bullet and spend a lot of money on your qualifications. If you’re stuck in an entry-level job, you know that things are never going to change unless you take action. A calculated risk can lead to some significant changes: these days I need to work just 10 hours per week to earn more money and be much happier than when I was spending 30 hours a week at the language institute and doing a lot of lesson planning at home. Since I’m my own boss, I normally choose to work more, which allows me to lead a very comfortable lifestyle.

The attitude shift caused by the pandemic means that you can do a lot of stuff remotely and there’s no need to be based in one of the big ELT markets. If you have the right visa and access to the internet, you can live in a small town in South America and teach students from other countries without using a middleman. You can work as a contractor for organisations based in another country, which comes with some obvious benefits. You can run your own in-person or online courses for local students as well. The opportunities are out there, and it’s important to keep emphasising that being a language academy employee is not the only career path for English teachers.

Finally, don’t underestimate the power of your online presence. I’ve met a lot of brilliant ELT professionals thanks to this blog, and it always feels nice to receive positive messages about my posts. Also, without TEFL in Colombia, I wouldn’t have been able to convince the amazing guest contributors to help me create More Than a Gap Year Adventure. If you are thinking of making progress in your ELT career, I recommend that you get a copy of the book since it contains a lot of useful advice that may have a very positive effect on your development in the profession.

Main takeaways from my first year of freelancing

When I moved to Medellín a year ago, I decided to make a major change in my professional life and quit my stable job at a language institute. I became self-employed and started to offer my services to institutions, private students, and teachers. Now that I have some experience under my belt, I’d like to share a few thoughts on the pros and cons of working as an ELT freelancer in Colombia.

Medellín, Colombia

Freelancing has many benefits
Working as a teacher for Centro Colombo Americano was great in terms of gaining teaching experience, but I wasn’t happy with being underpaid and having few opportunities to develop professionally. Freelancing allows me to focus on work that pays better and helps me learn new stuff. In addition to working as an independent contractor for International House, I run my own online courses and offer consulting services. I’m now involved in a variety of activities, which is much more fun than repetitive work at a language academy, and I feel that I’ve learned a lot about a few areas of ELT that I hadn’t paid attention to before.

Being proactive is crucial
Since I have no guaranteed number of working hours, it’s all very simple. The onus is on me to find my own clients, which means that I have to keep in touch with a lot of people. Freelancers are recommended to have more sources of income, and there are some pretty good reasons for that. Companies may cancel their English programme, students get a job that prevents them from attending classes, etc. It’s important to be ready for that eventuality and know how to find a way to replace that lost contract.

Word-of-mouth recommendations are extremely helpful
So far, I haven’t had to use any third-party services to find my private students. When I started freelancing, I simply contacted a number of students I had worked with before and offered them advanced English courses delivered through Zoom. It seems that personal recommendations are very powerful because once I managed to get my first students, I started receiving messages from their family members, colleagues, and friends who would like to be taught by me. This makes me very happy since I can keep teaching classes completely independently without relying on a platform that charges a commission.

I like having a flexible schedule
Since I’m not an employee anymore, I can choose when and how much I’m going to work. When I’m too busy, I simply tell the institution or individual who is contacting me that I’m not available at that moment. I can also decide to take a day off anytime I want, which is great. Since I don’t have a fixed schedule, I’m flexible when it comes to rescheduling lessons in case something unexpected happens. Having more freedom is one of the main reasons I made the decision to go freelance. I was actually in talks to teach at two local universities, but both of them require their teachers to work on Saturdays, which would have clashed with my other projects, so I chose to become self-employed instead.

I can teach the way I want to
Working with private students is amazing! I don’t need to follow a syllabus written by someone else; I analyse the individual’s needs and create a course just for them completely from scratch. It’s great to be able to spend time on areas that tend to be neglected, such as teaching listening skills; I follow John Field’s advice to do that, and it works pretty well. I’ve also enjoyed running group courses based on TBLT and the Dogme approach. Being fully in charge of choosing and designing course materials is one of several advantages of working as a freelance teacher.

Teaching isn’t the only thing one needs to pay attention to
When I was an employee, I would just sign my contract and let the language institute deal with the rest. Since I work as an independent contractor on what is called contrato de prestación de servicios, I’m responsible for following local laws and regulations when it comes to taxes and social security. I needed to get a tax identification number (RUT) and sign up for health insurance and pension as an independent contributor. I highly recommend that you check out this Sponge Chat with Nicola Prentis in which she stresses the importance of thinking of your pension. TEFL is usually seen as a short-term career, so this topic isn’t that often talked about.

It can be done only with the right kind of visa
Freelancers tend to have various sources of income, which means that you need to hold a visa with an open work permit. There are two popular ways to achieve that here in Colombia: You can stay on an employee visa (type M) for five years and then get a resident visa, or there is a shortcut for those with a Colombian partner since that kind of visa allows the holder to work as a freelancer. I’ve also seen reports of people successfully obtaining the new digital nomad visa, but that one is more about being able to stay in the country for more than six months. Digital nomads can freelance as well; however, they can’t work with clients based in Colombia since their income has to come from abroad.

Being ghosted is very common
I’ve been involved in quite a few chat or email conversations in which the other party simply disappeared for no apparent reason, even after they had accepted to join my course or use one of my services. It seems that some people believe that ghosting me is a better option than being honest and telling me that they have changed their mind due to my hourly rate or something else. While it’s not that surprising in the case of institutions and strangers from the internet, it’s very disappointing when it’s done by someone I’ve known for years, and it inevitably sours the relationship. This has made me focus more on quality rather than quantity, so I prefer to work with a limited number of clients who are genuinely interested in attending my lessons or consultations.

It’s necessary to set clear rules
When you don’t use a middleman to assign classes to you, it’s up to you to arrange everything with your students. Being too nice is a disadvantage because the fact that someone says they will pay you doesn’t mean that they will actually do it. If you want to avoid chasing payments and having uncomfortable conversations, you need to make it clear to your students how things are going to work. You may have to set deadlines for payments and decide what to do in case of cancellations. It’s important to make sure that the process of getting paid goes as smoothly as possible.

► If you enjoyed this blog post, I recommend that you read More Than a Gap Year Adventure, a collaborative book aimed at those who wish to have a long-term career in our profession.