It is a very sad time right now, all around the work with the drastic effects of the COVID-19 virus or Corona virus that has affected millions of people and countries all over the world and this is indeed a very sad time, FOR ALL.
Like you, I have read countless social media posts, blogs and news reports on how loved ones are innocently loosing their lives to this vile, invisible, killer virus and as a result it is true to say that right now as a world together we are ALL having to dig deep emotionally and mentally to get through each day.
And for anyone who comes across this post and lost people close to you, I am deeply sorry for your loss. But we must try and maintain sanity within our own worlds that are now only interactive socially through digital media and right now, that is a blessing and for many a lifeline of hope but also for income.
Businesses all around the world are shutting down, laying off staff or making half promises that they don’ even know that they will be able to keep. No-one know really what the effects of this are going to be after this initial bloodshed.
Will it be seasons or years that it takes for populations, health services and economies to recover. The big question is a big fat, ‘don’t know.’
But one think I do know as a parent who lost myself, the father of my own two children two weeks ago is that determination and life must go on.
Learning and education must go on. That is how those wonderful doctors are going to find the cure, the epidemic to stop COVID-19 and educating yourself and others right now is one of the most powerful weapons you can arm yourself with right now, in the absence of a cure.
Schools all around the world are shut and they are crying our for online teachers as are parents.
Children’s learning still needs to continue where ever they are. As a result Digi-teach® has noticed a massive decline in online work from Chinese ESL platforms.
Some ESL platforms have simply put teachers on unpaid, obligatory, retraining. One platform did this with teachers that had maintained an average of 9.9 as a rating value, with ten being the highest. Perhaps they preferred to do this rather than say that they simply did not have enough clients!
Perhaps their economy has been too severely hit currently as many parents try and recover from huge medical bills – who knows but as a result lots of contracted teachers are struggling to find an income with these platforms. We prefer to be totally transparent about the current changes in the online industry as peoples families and livelihoods depend on it. One important point we are remarking here is that, teachers workig wth ESL platforms are self-employed however we are seeing a crossover into treating the teachers like an employee, enforcing ‘in house’ training without pay when in actual fact most online ESL teachers already have professional training far superior to that of ESL platforms. Furthermore, academically, ESL platforms are not regulated to assess teachers in a professional capacity.
Digi-teach® is aware of that and has been working away in the background with some companies and schools outside of China and we have also been contacted through our sister company for lots of private teachers on 1-1 basis for adults. Please make sure you are on our email list to get news on this.
We have also seen a huge increase in teachers that have gone through our Teacherpreneur program, increase their bookings literally overnight and we will be opening up again that program at the start of each month again due to demand. If you are interested in that, please register here.
There are going to be a lot of changes on the site in the weeks to come so I urge you to make sure you are registered for updates on the Digi-teach website.
Most of all, myself and the ‘behind the scenes’ team here at Digi-teach® wish everyone such good health, rest and most of all peace in this virual warfare we are all living right now, in one way or another.
Through much of this darkness we are living right now, online teachers like you can hold the torch and be the light, the beacon for so many people right now. Use that talent wisely 🙂
COVID-19 may be stopping a lot in life but here is how it’s not going to STOP online learning.
THIS IS YOUR COMPETITION AS AN INDEPENDANT TEACHER!!
Yes! That’s right. We receive a lot of emails from teachers wanting to find their own private clients and the biggest worry is often, wouldn’t ESL platforms have better resources than me! Well this is a page that was given to us by a teacher from a large ESL platform who make milllions in profit. This was one of eight pages fro a lesson with three students during 45 minutes.
True, any professional teacher would find this level of content very lacking. But in another sense this is good because this is your competition. Do you really think parents and students are happy with this? this may very well explain poor ratings.
Could you honestly deliver more – let’s face it, it wouldn’t take much effort. And there you have your first point of entry for matching your competition.
All this week and next we have been doing free training in the Teacherpreneurs facebook group on how you can find your own clients online. Make sure you bridge the gap with your own students. That is what a wise, old, owl would suggest anyway!
