Confessions of an Unconventional ESL Tutor: How Online ESL Lost Its Way
When 20-Minute Lessons Became More About Business Than Education
With no regrets and a sigh of relief, I parted ways from Rosetta Stone. Once I settled into my new condo, I started searching for other online ESL establishments.
My first experience with online teaching came during my final year in China. There was so special setup or teaching platform - just a supportive instant messenger and a dependable Internet connection.
I started with a teenager boy who had more interest in playing with his Xbox then learning English. Each time we met, he was in a different room with his Xbox always close by. I finally informed the organizer, who was also a friend, that I needed to discontinue because the last place logged in was his bathroom.
I settled in my minimalist condo, and went through my checklist before I started my ESL search. Internet connection stable, check. Video camera working, check. Main laptop with backup laptop within easy reach, check.
I was ready.
As the internet evolved, there was a boom of startups. Everyone wanted the piece of the pie, believing online education was a profitable business. At the time, online learning was considered as new and promising. At least, many of the earlier companies valued both their students and students, and the pay provided a worthwhile source of supplement income.
By the early 2000s, “online learning” had become a growing phenomenon in the United States. Although I entered the online ESL game later than some, I nevertheless joined the craze. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I encountered a few of bad seeds - that is to be expected. But when I found a worthwhile site, I valued the working relationship. The staff were attentive and helpful, I enjoyed teaching students were genuinely willing to learning, and the pay was decent.
As Online ESL expanded into becoming a commercial market in the US, the Asian quickly became the largest employer of native English speakers between 2005 and 2015. Demand was driven largely by business English and preparation for schools and university entrance exams.
10. Between 2012–2016, Latin America experienced its own surge in demand for English for U.S. businesses expanded into the region. English became an increasingly valuable workplace skill, and online ESL was not longer driven solely by Asia.
Europe was slower to embrace online ESL because traditional classroom education remained the preferred approach. Between 2013 and 2017, countries such as Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy gradually adopted online English learning. By the latter half of the decade, Europe had become an established part of online ESL market.
Between 2014 and 2018, demand also grew rapidly across the Middle East & Turkey. Many companies sought native English-speaking tutors to help their employees communicate confidently in international business and government settings.
Africa followed between 2016–2020. By then, online ESL teaching had become a truly global industry.COVID‑19 in 2020 didn’t create online learning - it simply accelerated its growth at an unprecedented pace.
From my little home office, I watched the industry grow from a niche profession into a worldwide business. With each new region that came online, another company appeared, another platform launched, and another set of promises was made to tutors and students alike.
I was already teaching online before Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East fully embraced the industry, making me part of the first generation of international online ESL instructors who witnessed its global expansion firsthand.
As you may have read from my previous post about Rosetta Stone, I was paid by the full hour - including wait time - which placed my earnings comfortably in the double digits. Later, I joined another platform that also paid well, provided tutors could prove their teaching qualifications. The major difference was that each lesson lasted only twenty minutes. A reminder appeared before the session ended, and if neither the student nor the tutor pressed “Continue,” the call was disconnected… literally.
More on that particular platform later ...
The decision of teaching online was about making a living, I was already semi-retired and living comfortably within my means. The income covered my credit card expenses, and whatever remained helped pay my condo’s HOA fees, which seemed to increase every year. I wasn’t desparate for the money.
I taught - and continue to teach - because I found purpose in helping others. As a foreigner myself who had to learn American nuances and everyday expressions while growing up, I understood the frustrations adult learners often faced.
However, full session for 45- to 50-minute lessons - including paid wait time on platforms similar to Rosetta Stone - gradually disappeared. Instead, lessons were reduced to twenty-minute blocks as companies changed their business model.
Many platforms, while not perfect, had once been stable, predictable, and professional. Over time, however, companies realized that shortening lessons to twenty minutes increased their profits while reducing what they paid tutors for their time and experience.
Chinese platforms, whose primary focus was children, discovered that twenty- to twenty-five-minute lessons better suited young learners’ attention spans. At the same time, charging by shorter lesson blocks often encouraged parents to book more sessions. Before long, scheduling shifted toward stacking consecutive lessons rather than matching students with tutors based on teaching style or learning needs.
Just like the game of “follow the leader”, the other regions soon adopted the same approach. Adult ESL platforms followed, promoting the idea that that “micro-learning is modern.” In reality, shorter lessons meant paying tutors less while over charging students more.
I don’t like being pushed—physically or mentally—and teaching a revolving pool of students, repeating the same greetings and questions, is not my idea of teaching. It certainly isn’t learning, nor does it expand a student’s understanding of the language.
Pay became fragmented, inconsistent, lower and, most of all, unrealistic.
Advertisements play the rhetoric game of claiming ‘cheap lessons’, but what does a student truly gain from twenty minutes? Introduction, a few basic questions, “thank you,” “goodbye” then onto the next student?
Wham, bam, next…
Where’s the connection? Where’s the value of actually understanding the language?
There is none.
Tutors are paid for exact minutes they teach. The more lesson blocks filled, the more teachers work - but not necessarily for better pay. But after China banned foreign ESL teaching in 2021,Europe and Latin America largely adopted the the micro-billing model.
They kept the same system because it was profitable. Most students never questioned the setup, and tutors simply became accustomed to it.
Today, some tutors treat online ESL as a quick source of extra income. They complete one twenty-minute lesson after another, and by the end of the month they’ve earned spending money. As long as the paycheck arrives, the platform itself matters very little to them.
But excuse me… Not this tutor…
When I started, tutors were valued and paid professionally. Sessions were meaningful, students were matched with tutors according to their learning level, and pay reflected both time and expertise.
Today, the professional tutor has been reduced to a gig worker, a micro-tasked contractor, and minute provider rather than a respected educator.
This concludes Part 1, where I’ve explained how and why online ESL platforms changed their business methods. What was once a service for students who genuinely wanted to strengthen their understanding and spoken English gradually became something else.
Like many growing companies, ESL platforms increasingly focused on profit. “It’s business,” as I mentioned in an earlier post about my time teaching in China.
Business, not service... and if it is a service, it is certainly not one equally shared between the students and the tutors.
Part 2 begins with my joining a Polish ESL platform after discovering that many other European companies required tutors to be local residents or to hold a legal work permit in their country. What followed were eight years of adapting to constant policy changes affecting tutors’ pay, while watching students pressured into signing two-year contracts—and then penalized if they chose to leave before those contracts expired.
In the end, many online ESL platforms offered flexibility only so long as tutors remained flexible enough to fit the company’s expectations.
This appears to have been a very uncomfortable arrangement for you. Funny how a simple thing of wanting to teach people a language can get so out of hand. Too bad.
I don’t use platforms. Students pay a monthly subscription fee for lessons for my niche. I use Zoom