What this site is for
Online English teaching has thousands of moving parts — certifications, platforms, equipment, pricing, lesson planning, dealing with parents, getting paid across currencies. Most of what exists online is either marketing copy from companies selling something, or thin SEO content scraped from older blog posts.
This site tries to fill the gap with practical, honest, current guides. Not exhaustive — we don't publish on every topic. We focus on the questions teachers actually email us about.
Who reads us
- People considering teaching English online for the first time.
- Classroom teachers transitioning to online or hybrid work.
- Existing online teachers wanting to raise rates, change niches, or fix burnout.
- Career changers and digital nomads researching the path.
Editorial standards
- Primary sources first. Pay rates and platform requirements come from the platforms themselves, not from older blog posts. We re-verify quarterly.
- Tested by working teachers. Activities, equipment picks, and classroom techniques are tried in real lessons before we publish.
- Disclosed affiliate relationships. Some outbound links are affiliate; we disclose this in our terms and never recommend products we wouldn't suggest to a friend.
- Dated content. Every guide shows a "last reviewed" date. Material changes get a changelog entry.
- No AI shovelware. AI helps us draft and edit, but every published guide goes through a human teacher and a human editor before going live.
How we make money
- Display advertising — Google AdSense.
- Affiliate commissions on TEFL courses and tools we recommend. We never recommend a product we haven't researched, and we lose more affiliate revenue declining low-quality partnerships than we earn from the ones we accept.
- Occasional sponsored content, clearly labelled as such — never in core guides like our platform comparisons or certification reviews.
We do not sell teacher data, and we do not offer paid placement in our "best of" articles.
Who's behind the site
TeachEnglishOnline.org is a small independent editorial team — see the editorial team page for how we work and how to contribute.
What we don't do
- We are not a teaching platform. You can't list yourself or take lessons here.
- We are not a recruiter. We point to job sources but we don't place teachers.
- We are not a certification body. We compare programs; we don't issue qualifications.
- We are not legal, tax or immigration advisors. Where we cover those topics, it's general orientation only.
Our content review process
Every published guide goes through a structured pipeline before it reaches the live site:
- Brief — editor scopes the article, defines the target reader and the question being answered. We don't write speculative content "because it might rank".
- Draft — contributor writes from primary sources (platform documentation, certification provider pricing, government data) plus their own teaching experience.
- Fact-check — editor verifies every claim that's checkable: pay rates, course costs, platform requirements, regulations. Anything we can't verify gets cut or flagged.
- Edit — for clarity, tone, structure, and removing filler.
- Review against existing content — make sure new claims don't contradict existing guides; cross-link where useful.
- Publish with a "last reviewed" date.
- Quarterly re-review for evergreen guides; annual at minimum.
How we handle conflicts of interest
We may have affiliate relationships with some providers we recommend. We follow three rules to keep this honest:
- We never recommend a product or course we haven't researched. Where teachers in our network haven't used it personally, we say so.
- In comparison guides ("Top 7 platforms"), affiliate status does not change ranking. We rank by value to the reader, then disclose any commercial relationship.
- Sponsored content — when it exists — is clearly labelled "sponsored" at the top of the article. It never appears in our core comparison or "best of" guides.
If you spot a recommendation that seems off, email us. We'd rather adjust a recommendation than keep a misleading one.
Topics we cover (and topics we don't)
We cover
- Online ESL/EFL teaching for adults and children
- Certifications: TEFL, TESOL, CELTA, DELTA
- Teaching platforms: marketplaces, company employers, niche platforms
- Classroom setup: hardware, software, internet, ergonomics
- Lesson planning, materials, methodology, classroom management
- Business of teaching: pricing, marketing, contracts, taxes (orientation only)
- Career development: niches, scaling, burnout prevention
We don't cover
- In-person teaching abroad (visas, school placements). There are dedicated sites that do this well.
- General teacher training unrelated to ESL.
- Other language teaching (Mandarin, Spanish, etc.) — methodology overlaps, but our community and sourcing are English-specific.
- Recruitment / job placement. We link to jobs but don't place teachers.
- Personal teaching advice for specific student situations — too case-specific to do well in general guides.
Editorial ethics statement
We commit to:
- Accuracy over speed. When unsure, we delay publication rather than guess.
- Transparent updates. If we change a recommendation, the change is dated and explained, not silently revised.
- Independent voice. No platform, certification provider or sponsor reviews our content before publication. Period.
- Respecting teacher privacy. Case studies are either pseudonymised at the teacher's request or fully attributed with consent. We never identify a teacher's students.
- Plain-language disclosures. Affiliate links, sponsorships, and any other commercial relationships are disclosed in language a reader can actually understand.
- Correction policy. Real errors get a visible correction note on the article. We don't silently delete things to look better.
A short note about AI
We use AI tools for drafting, editing and outlining. We do not publish unedited AI output. Every guide has been read, fact-checked and shaped by a human editor with teaching context. Where we use AI to generate something a reader sees directly (a sample worksheet, an example lesson), we say so.
Contact
Questions, corrections, contributor pitches: [email protected] or the contact page.