I don't know if the post title is even appropriate for the dozens of these recently popular English learning companies that have sprouted like mushrooms. Many are located in Makati, most are now in Ortigas center and some are inconspicuously isolated in locations you'd probably not even guess there would be such businesses like in your next door neighbor's vacant room. It seems these quasi-call centers are really doing good in business terms if not there wouldn't be so many out there and so many online teaching jobs available.

It has become a habit of mine to cruise along jobstreet regularly to find out if there are interesting stuff going on in the job market. The curious thing in this week's job openings is that Online English Teacher/Instructor jobs are posted left and right by several different companies. A brief browse of their company profiles reveal most are Korean-owned and/or has Korean ties in one way or the other. So I wondered what on earth could be the reason why so many Koreans are now so eager to learn the native language of Winston Churchill?

I found the answer in the ever reliable threads of the Pinoy Exchange forums. It turns out Koreans, especially kids in school, are require to pass a certain level of English proficiency in order to continue with higher education. At the same time, many Korean professionals are also now seeing the significance of having an edge of spoken English proficiency in their careers and the job market. It does seem that Koreans in general are not fond of learning English at all. However, it is an educational requirement they cannot opt out of.

How Korean "call centers" and jobs work?

You have to have a certain level of spoken English proficiency to get a job as an English Instructor. Once hired and trained, you are given a certain roster of "online" students in Korean that you have to spend 30 minutes teaching English to over a video chat program such as Yahoo IM or more popularly Skype. You are given certain English training curriculum books to base and guide your students through several days, weeks months of training. Your "online" student has access to the same books you are teaching them. At the end of every training session, you record your students "grade", monitor and report their progress to your management. Schedules are based in Korean time so most "online English teachers" usually start working as early as 5AM in the Philippines and some work early Korean evenings. Full time jobs are available while they also offer part-time work. In some job postings, salary ranges from 14,000 to as high as 30,000. Not bad if you have the patience and understanding to deal with persons who are naturally "under-literate" in English for 30 minute sessions every day. The non-monetary benefits in this type of job are below par compared against your typical call center since most companies like these are small and recently established. Some do offer medical reimbursements but expectations need to be set that these are not big companies able to offer anything else besides above-average salaries. An online English instructor can typically earn at least 500 pesos a day which is desirable enough if we consider the light work load and relatively less-stressed environment.

Home-based English Instructor work

If you have the hardware, software and stable broadband internet connection at home, you may also try and look at the possibility of doing this type of work at home by yourself. Two of the most popular sites were you can do such thing is ontue.com and and homebased-esl-teacher.com. There are other similar sites and the mechanics of how you get students, how you will teach and how you get paid are different. However, it is essentially the same thing you would be doing if you work for any other Korean-owned English teaching office. The pay is the same depending on your capacity to work as many hours teaching online at home, the number of students you can teach at a given day and also how much pay rate you set for yourself.

As with any other job, this isn't for everybody. You have to possess the understanding and patience to work with students of varying degrees of proficiency. However, working as an online English Instructor presents people with good alternative to BPO work. For those who are typically online all the time at home, this should be a good try. For those who would love to get the same "call center pay" while staying at home, this is a great solution. In my honest opinion, the pros outweigh the cons. :)