Hello there! Welcome to this blog. If you’re reading this it’s probably safe to assume that you either are a new teacher on Preply or you’re considering becoming one. In this blog, I’ll be sharing my personal experience, what’s it been like start to finish and what I feel about teaching in this platform overall.
What Is Preply?
Before we get into the nitty gritty, you may be wandering, what is Preply precisely?
My background
It is good to clarify that I didn’t have any previous experience or teaching qualifications.
I have a degree in Tourism Business Management and I’ve worked as a host, tour guide and various costumer service roles in the past so I have experience with public speaking and working with crowds and people of diverse backgrounds.
I am a native Spanish speaker from Mexico. I learned English from a young age and even though it’s not perfect, I speak it fluently at a bilingual level.
Why Did I Become A Preply Tutor?
Language teaching certificates aren’t cheap, I wanted to use this as an experience to decide if teaching would be something I’d like to do before committing to a payed language teaching certificate such as ELE or TOEFL.
Other teaching websites like Verbling and iTalki are often not accepting new tutors and when they do they tend to be more selective and competitive. I personally haven’t applied for any other site yet because the times I’ve checked they don’t accept new tutors.
Starting Up As A Preply Tutor And Finding Students
Setting up your profile
My initial profile
Attracting New Students
How did my first month go? Timeline of my month
I don’t have receipts for it but I believe I set up my profile a few days before I was approved on the 5th of April. I initially set up my price at 10-15 USD and didn’t see any movement for a couple of days. After watching some videos, I learned that people recommend putting your prices really low at the beginning. Some as low as 2 USD. I changed my rate to 5 USD.
My first lesson
The 9th, I had my first booking (S1) and 10th I had my first class (C1). This student didn’t decide to stay with me and ghosted me when I asked for feedback. Since this was my first class, I tried to be very formal and follow the structure of the power point that I prepared. I thought I was friendly and had good conversation for the most part but perhaps I focused too much on getting through the different points in time rather than on the conversation itself which is what I think this particular student was looking for.
As a side note, I’ve been sick for te better part of April so I had to do this and other classes with a sore throat in the hopes that I wouldn’t loose my voice halfway through the hour. And as I mentioned before, when I was setting up my profile I didn’t really know what to expect or if I’d ever even get any students so when this first student booked from one day to the next, I had to put together a class overnight and wing it.
Students that stayed with me
12 I got new student booking Eric (S2), 13 new student book Yanna (S3), 16 new student booked Sandra (S4), 19 new student book Kristel (S5). All of them stayed with me after the trial lesson. 3 of them gave me really good feedback on how they enjoyed the class and thought it was helping them, the 4th was ok but is a bit too grammar focused so we haven’t found the grove of it yet. Regardless, these students really got me motivated and made me feel like I could bring value to people in this way, even as an unexperienced tutor.
18 trial class with Sandra, 19 Sandra bought 20 hours with me!
The 24th, I got my first review from lovely Sandra and it meant so much to me.
Getting overwhelmed
Students can send you messages before booking and you also get notifications of people who started booking a class but didn’t complete the process and of those who saved me to their favorites. I got quite a few of these (about __) but I’ll only account for actual students here.
I change my rate from 5 USD to 7 USD and changed my availability from 40 hrs to 30 hrs. I got 2 new bookings and one of them stayed, the other said they got busy moving but might be back when they’re more settled.
21 new student book Jonathan (6) / trial class with Kristel
19 student messaged me asking about help with test and I said I couldn’t help
new student book Alice (7)
Not getting any new students
Finding Students Yourself
Preply’s Commission Structure
Things I Like About Preply
Giving the opportunity to new tutors
Academy
My Experience As A Preply Tutor: Summing Up
30% Discount for your first class
How to teach a language: an introduction to language teaching methodology
Things I Don’t Like About Preply
Other People’s Reviews
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