Charity Ndunge is a TEFL-certified English teacher from Kenya who helps students develop spoken English skills for conversation, business, interviews, and presentations. Her interactive, practical, and value-led methods focusing on real-life communication skills tailored to students’ specific goals have helped her build a thriving teaching business on Preply. In this blog post, she shares her insights into the challenges faced by many African ESL teachers, as well as top tips and strategies to overcome these.
African ESL teachers face many difficulties teaching online – from technological challenges to discrimination. I would like to share my experiences with the challenges that African ESL teachers go through and actionable tips on how to overcome them.
Challenge 1: Unstable power and internet.
Many African countries have a load shedding policy, which often switches off power in rural areas. This can cause issues when teaching online, as you risk appearing unreliable if you have frequent tech issues.
✅ Solution: Have backup power banks and a second mobile or satellite internet connection in case the main supply goes off.
Challenge 2: Timezone differences
Many students who want to learn English are in different time zones. To get clients, teachers sometimes overstretch themselves by teaching more than 15 hours both day and night. This leads to burnout and health risks.
✅ Solution: Only open classes during peak times. Charge higher rates or switch to group classes to earn a good salary while teaching more reasonable hours.
Challenge 3: Racial bias and non-native speakerism
For a long time many students have been hesitant to pick African tutors, either due to racist stereotypes or concerns over non-native accents. They forget that we understand the difficulties of learning a new language and have first-hand experience with accent reduction. Being familiar with their challenges means we also know the best route to take while teaching to help them understand faster.
✅ Solution: Highlight your professional qualifications and teaching experience. Use your own language learning experiences as an advantage, rather than hiding them. Showcase clear pronunciation during lessons.
Challenge 4: Payment processing
Many international payment providers do not operate in most African countries. Currency conversion also takes a lot of time or incurs additional costs.
✅ Solution: Charge students for larger packages rather than individual classes. Use platforms such as Preply, where you can receive money via Payoneer / Wise / Paypal / bank transfer (depending on your country). Withdraw in batches to reduce commission fees.
Challenge 5: Standing out from the competition
Online ESL teaching is very competitive, with teachers from all around the world competing for clients. Parents sometimes think African teachers should be a cheap, budget option, which makes it hard to stand out as an expert and charge what you’re worth.
✅ Solution: Don’t directly advertise your prices. Showcase your qualifications / experience, collect reviews / case studies, and use professional online teaching tools and curriculum resources to stand out.
Summary
Thank you Charity for these excellent insights! Overcoming regional challenges ultimately comes down to owning your unique strengths as an educator and using technology to support. Simple tools such as backup power supplies, payment processing services, and professional curriculum helps you stand out from the competition, build instant trust with parents, and command the premium rates you deserve—no matter where you are teaching from.
👇 Has this inspired you to persevere or adjust your strategy as an online ESL teacher, from anywhere in the world? Let us know in the comments below!