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APPLYING TO ONLINEESLTEACHERS.COM
COMMUNICATION BETWEEN TEACHERS AND ONLINEESLTEACHERS.COM
COMPANY CREDIBILITY, SCAMS
COMPUTER SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
DOCUMENTS, PHOTOS, UPLOADING FILES, ETC.
PAYMENT
PRIVACY CONCERNS
SCHEDULING & TEACHING DETAILS
APPLYING TO ONLINEESLTEACHERS.COM [Go Top]
Q: Are applications accepted on an on-going basis, or according to annual or semester needs?
A: Our company is growing continually. Please apply whenever you are ready to start working for us. We have continual intake for both students and teachers.
Q: I was wondering if I will need a work permit to do the classes. I am a native English speaker from another country, non-Canadian citizen, who's getting established in Vancouver, but I have not yet applied for a work permit.
A: Yes, you need a legal work permit.
Q: I am USA citizen and I am living in USA. Can I apply?
A: Yes, you can apply.
Q: How do teachers apply?
A: Visit our website at http://www.onlineeslteachers.com/board/teacher_register.asp and fill out an application form. We will follow-up applications.
Q: Can I apply without a degree if I'll be graduating soon?
A: Get a scanned copy of a letter from your university that indicates you will be graduating soon. If this is available, please submit your picture and the scanned letter as a replacement of university certificate for now. You can send us your certificate after your graduation.
Q: Is there a cost for or a fee to use the software? Are there any other fees for the learning materials or anything else?
A: The students are charged, not the teachers. Also, you will download our video conferencing software and PDF instruction manual. Please see the list of computer requirements.
Q: Is there a fee to register or another type of fees associated with your site?
A: No fees are required by the teachers.
Q: What age group will I be teaching?
A: From grade 1 to adults in South Korea.
Q: Are we teaching business or conversational English?
A: You can do both. However, we will establish our own curriculum as other ESL institutions do. If you have any questions about course development, please contact us.
Q: Is there a training manual or guidebook that the students follow?
A: As we provide 1:1 lesson, you can define your student's English level and provide your own materials in PowerPoint files.
COMMUNICATION BETWEEN TEACHERS AND ONLINEESLTEACHERS.COM [Go Top]
Q: What should I do if I have had difficulty receiving emails from your company?
A: Please set up your SPAM filter to receive our email. We are sending all important information through email so you may miss some in the future if this is not changed.
Q: What email address is recommended for registration?
A: We recommend Hotmail, Gmail or any Email addresses that your ISP provides. However, company email or Yahoo email users have many difficulty receiving our emails due to their strong spam filtering. Currently we are not accepting Yahoo email addresses. We never send spam emails. Email communication is the most important tool between teachers and us, so we recommend that you use a very reliable email address.
COMPANY CREDIBILITY, SCAMS [Go Top]
Q: I love the idea of working at home and teaching on-line, but since there is always the risk of something on-line being a scam, how can you prove to me that this ESL work is not?
A: You don't have to worry about any information you provide us on-line. Our registration form requires only general information such as email, name, address and work experience. We won't ask you to include any critical information such as credit card number, birth date or your banking information, etc.
Q: Where can I find out more about your organization? How do I know if this really is a legitimate organization?
A: Our head office is in Vancouver, Canada. We are a legal Canadian corporation. If you want, you can meet our active teachers. Our company's legal incorporated name is OKBUDDY ENTERPRISES LTD, BN# is BC0742051. Most of our current customers are individual clients in South Korea. Our student portal website, www.OnlineESL.ca, is a top ranked English Education website in South Korea. Our Korean website address is: www.OnlineESL.ca. Please review it for our corporate information.
COMPUTER SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS [Go Top]
Q: In my area I only have dial-up Internet service. Will this be a problem with your company? We are considering a wireless service.
A: High-speed Internet is the most important requirement. If it is not available to you, then you will not be able to teach for us. Also, we do not accept wireless Internet connections and/or sharing with other people.
Q: I match all academic qualifications as an on-line ESL teacher. However, I do not possess the computer hardware. I would like to know if the equipment will be provided. If not, if I do purchase such equipment, will it be tax deductible? After all, it is material that I need in order to work-quite similar to office supplies & stationery.
A: We don't provide equipment. As you know, we are hiring online ESL teachers all across Canada. In fact, we treat our teachers as contractors just like other companies do. Given that, we will pay for hours that they work for us. Some teachers deduct their business costs with the help of an accounting professional.
Q: What are the computer requirements?
A: Currently our system doesn't work on the Mac. All on-line teachers will require a webcam, sound card, headset, a microphone and PC as well. PC must meet the following specifications:
2.8Ghz Pentium IV or above
Windows XP. Or Windwos Vista (Not Mac)
Internet Explorer 6.0 above.
Web Camera (USB type or Sound Card Plug-in type, not Microphone built-in)
Headset with Microphone attached or Desktop Microphone and Headset
Good Sound Card
DOCUMENTS, PHOTOS, UPLOADING FILES, ETC. [Go Top]
Q: Where are you going to use my photo? I have heard about the teacher's profile system. Can you explain more about it please?
A:Our teacher profile system is really important in terms of assigning you classes. The majority of students will enroll in your classes after they preview all of the registered teachers' profiles. They will mainly look at your photo, introduction and related work experience section, and your available teaching hours. They will not see any other personal information.
Once they have considered the teacher profiles and found a teacher that meets their requirements, they will enroll into that class directly through the website and make an instant credit card payment.
Photographs: Your profile must be as professional-looking as possible. Below we have provided some tips to help you create and maintain a very professional-looking profile, according to the Korean culture's standards.
The South Korean culture is quite different from here. An especially poor quality photo will lead the student to believe that you may not be a professional ESL teacher, or that you do not care what people think of you. Either way will not help you in getting more students.
South Korean society is quite formal in terms of what is appropriate for employee attire. For example, 90% of corporate employees dress-up everyday. Thus, we strongly recommend that you put a professional studio photo in your profile.
Please wear formal dress attire that is conservative, without a lot of skin exposed. Also, a clean haircut is appreciated. One thing is for certain, people know that teaching is a highly respectable profession.
Please post a "close-up" photo similar to a passport picture format.
Introduction: If you post very short paragraphs for your introduction, you may come across to the students as if you do not care what they think of you, or you may just appear lazy. It gives the impression that you are inconsiderate. Again, please remember, Korean culture is different than Canadian culture.
Please make your introduction friendly and warm. If it appears too cold or business-like, the students most likely won't like it.Describe how you will teach your students. Try to reveal to them some of your passion and dedication as a teacher. Try your best to describe all of your academic achievements/completed courses. Korean society highly acknowledges teachers who have high academic achievements on their record. Please post any BA, MA, PhD, TESL, or other certificates that you have received for your accomplishments.
Q: I am not having any success sending my photo - I have tried a number of times and I keep getting an error message stating that it will only accept jpg images.
A: Normally jpg files are okay. When you upload your scanned picture or documents, please upload a bigger image, at least bigger than 640 x 480 or 480x 640 pixels. Our system will automatically reduce your files to the ideal size. Don't worry about the big image size, as long as each image size is not over 4 megabytes. If you experience any trouble submitting your picture and documents, please send us an email with your scanned picture and documents as attachments instead.
Q: Can you tell me about the standards of picture for submission?
A:Pictures taken personally with a digital camera or scanned images are both fine. However, we would prefer scanned pictures taken at any PHOTO STUDIO. We ask that you select a CLOSE-UP of your face, just as in a passport photo to allow students to see your image clearly.
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The actual image size must be bigger than 640x480 or 480x640 pixels in order to reserve a good quality image. Our system will resize your uploaded image size to our desired size automatically. Please understand that we do not resize or trim your picture manually.
Regarding personal photographs, while seemingly an unusual practice to those of us living in Canada, in South Korea, it is accepted that students be allowed to see what their teachers look like before making a decision regarding whether or not to study with them. While this might seem strange or even prejudiced to Canadian eyes, it is simply a cultural difference that we are taking into account. This being the case, we are requiring clear facial photographs from all teachers across the board in order to gain the trust of students.
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Q: I was wondering if you have a fax number so I can send you my documents. I do not have access to a scanner or digital camera.
A: We require scanned documents. If you find a Staples, or Office Depot in your area, the scanning service costs a couple of dollars. Please email or upload scanned documents as jpg files to our website.
PAYMENT [Go Top]
Q: How do I get paid?
A: We won't be asking for any checking a/c # or credit card number. We have been using "Email Money" for the past one year and we haven't got any complaints from teachers. We don't consider Paypal money as it might be compromised by some hackers. The "email money" is the most solid and convenient method. As long as you have a checking account from any major Canadian bank, you will be paid electronically and instantly. Also, you don't have to let us know your checking account number. Only your email address will be required. If you are not familiar with Email Money, you can get more information at the following website.
http://www.certapay.com/en/personalPayments/FAQs.html.
PRIVACY CONCERNS
Q: Is it a 'must' to submit my picture? Could you please explain in greater detail why a photograph is necessary? I can understand why you would need to have my certificates and certainly do not have a problem providing you with my university transcripts, however, I do not understand why my transcripts would need to be posted publicly-the same as with my photograph. As the Internet is an example of being in the public domain to the greatest degree, I would need to fully understand why my personal information is needed to be posted for all to see.
A: While seemingly an unusual practice to those of us living in Canada, in South Korea, it is accepted that students be allowed to see what their teachers look like before making a decision regarding whether or not to study with them. With regard to your certificates and transcripts, it is not our intent to post them on the site for all to see. Students will see only the thumb-nail sized images. Full size of the images that you submit will be reviewed by internal staff only and not made available to the public.
SCHEDULING & TEACHING DETAILS [Go Top]
Q: How many students do you have right now?
A: Our first marketing campaign was launched in September 2006. As of January 2007, we have more than 200 unique visitors and 50 paid students. Our business continues to expand.
Q: What does the curriculum cover? Do you supply the teaching material, and is everything done on-line (such as marking, sending lessons, etc.)?
A: We rely on each teacher's experience, teaching methods and materials as well. Teachers assess student needs and provide materials that allow students to practice English targets. Teachers are further encouraged to share ideas in our web portal.
Q: How can I change my preferred class dates or class hours?
A: Once you have qualified, you will be provided with a log-in ID and password from us. Then you will have access to your own web profile. You can then modify your information anytime including your contact information, submitting your documents and managing your own teaching schedules.
Q: How many hours will I be able to teach each day?
A: We will advise you to select all your available hours and students level during the process of submitting your picture and documents. There are no maximum teaching hours/day so the more you are available, the more you opportunity you will have.
Q: Is there a cost for or a fee to use the software? Are there any other fees for the learning materials or anything else?
A: The students are charged, not the teachers. Also, you will download our video conferencing software and we provide a training session. Please also see the list of computer requirements in the FAQ section-COMPUTER SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS.
Q: I indicated that I wanted to teach 6 days per week. Is it possible to change if that becomes too much?
A: Of course, you can change your schedule. We are building our web-based application so that teachers can manage their own hours. Teachers can manage their hours on a monthly basis.
Q: Would I be an employee or contracted?
A: Regarding the type of work, it will be "contracted". Of course when we grow, we will hire some "employees" as well. But for now, our priority is hiring contract teachers.
Q: Is a lot of time required for lesson preparation, etc?
A: Regarding the lesson preparation, I don't think you need to dedicate too many hours. However, we rely on each teacher's creative teaching methods. Experienced ESL teachers will face less preparation time than new teachers. Many of the materials you prepare will be useful for multiple students.
Q: Does an instructor lead a different class of students each month or does the relationship last longer?
A: Students register and pay in advance for classes on a monthly basis. It is possible some students may change as often as each month.
Q: Can I contact other Online ESL Teachers in my area?.
A: Certainly an arrangement could be made if you would like to talk to one or more of our teachers prior to being hired. After hiring, you are welcome to use the teachers' forum to share ideas and discuss issues with our other teachers.
Q: Because this is online teaching, is there any reason why I couldn't teach from another location if I must travel?
A: We do not recommend any frequent traveling while you are taking care of any classes because we are unable to ensure the required quality and reliability of the Internet connection. Online group conferencing software requires very stable/reliable high speed Internet bandwidth. However, when you stay in a hotel or another place that provides shared Internet, this requirement is not ensured. If you need to travel infrequently, you may cancel any specified day with an agreement from students. If you need to travel for an extended period, your classes will be assigned to another teacher.
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FAQ
