On Six Months of Teaching on Preply and Italki

At least teaching online means teaching from gardens or courtyards, occasionally.

I signed up for Preply and iTalki not long after I graduated from university. My experience so far has been not unpleasant. I’ve gained a great many students and quite like teaching. However, I find the pay low, considering how much energy it takes me to teach classes and the amount of effort that goes into my lessons. I hardly have time for my own studies, aside from what I need to do to prepare for a tutoring session, like preparing a text a student is interested in reading together, and I am in a constant state of exhaustion.

It should be noted that posting daily on Instagram, something I did to gain more students, is part of the issue as well. I began posting regularly around the same I began teaching. I film and edit everything myself, meaning I more or less have a second unpaid job outside of teaching that also involves being mocked by strangers. Being insulted daily by strangers who think my voice is “ghastly” or “awful” depresses me, but I’m not really sure how else to sell my group courses or find new students.

But back to my only real issue with teaching on Preply and iTalki. Technically, the teacher gets to choose his or her price. In reality, that price is of course influenced by what people will pay and by my competition. Basically, at this point, if I charge more than 20 dollars, nobody signs up. Of that $20 dollars, I only get $15 on Preply. I charge and receive slightly more on iTalki. If I taught for forty hours a week, I might still not be earning enough after taxes (Americans pay US income taxes even if they live abroad and the taxes freelancers pay are rather high) to live in England, for example, where I study, or in any other country with a higher cost of living. If I had a family it probably wouldn’t be an option at all. Still, this isn’t my long-term career plan and I understand that this is one of the pitfalls of gig work. It’s just something to consider if you are planning to teach on Preply or iTalki. You won’t get rich fast and it is real work.

After six months of teaching I have only 5-star reviews. On Preply I have taught a little over 100 lessons, on iTalki around 35; this is partly because I was exhausted by both teaching and attending summer classes so I stopped accepting new students for a few months. This isn’t very much in the grand scheme of things. Once I have more hours and more reviews, I suspect I will be able to slowly raise my prices. In terms of promoting teachers to potential students, I think Preply does a more active job than iTalki, but I like that iTalki pays for trial lessons (Preply takes the full fee). Preply's requirements are stricter in respect to profile pages, too, which (in my opinion) makes the teacher’s profile better and more likely to be successful.

Still, this would not be sustainable as a sole source of income, particularly if you live in the US or UK as a single person rather than part of a larger family unit. I also find it slightly frustrating that my time is not worth more. Teaching Latin, especially using Familia Romana, is real work. I need to prepare lessons, too, and grade homework, meaning the $15 dollars and hour I get is actually more like $7.5 if we assume that I spend an hour on preparing or grading homework (in reality, it is probably less than that). I also need to spend a certain amount of time each day maintaining my ability to speak Latin well through private study and reviewing of vocabulary flash cards. Even though I teach, there is always more I can learn and improve on. This must be considered, too.

In my opinion, considering that most of my students are themselves Americans, a fair price would be something like $30-$50 an hour. I will try to slowly raise my prices to something more sustainable. I don’t blame people from countries with a lower cost of living for charging less nor can I be angry at people who want to pay only $20 an hour for lessons. Latin should not be a luxury; it should be for everyone. Balancing the desire to make Latin available to more people with the desire to be paid fairly is really difficult. I suspect that the solution to this is running more group courses or creating hybrid courses, involving both pre-recorded lectures and live interaction. If I teach many students at once, I can ask for less from each student per lesson, though I would still prefer to have a small group so that everyone gets enough attention to make progress.

Overall, I like my students. They are kind, funny, and interesting. I truly enjoy teaching and I also would prefer to run my own courses using the textbook and method I feel is best, rather than teaching to a standardized test using materials that aren’t as good, which is what would happen if I tried to find a job in an American middle school or secondary school. Also, in a year I will likely have a PhD stipend and, potentially, a salary for teaching part time at a university, although my understanding is that it is rather difficult to live on, so I will probably continue running online group courses and teaching online. Maybe it will become a full time job eventually. I am also uninterested in returning to the United States to teach in either a school or university, because classics are not as widely taught, humanities departments are regularly closed down, and teachers are not always treated with respect.

If you live in a place with a low cost of living or are able to charge more due to better qualifications (such as a PhD or experience teaching in a school), teaching through these sites really isn’t bad. However, it isn’t going to make you rich and it possibly won’t be enough as a sole source of income.

PS: I know know that I will not be teaching on these sites once I arrive the UK for university because, I have discovered, it is illegal to freelance on a student visa (luckily, I found this out before I actually got there).