A language school leaders response to teachers' financial difficulties.

Many teachers are struggling to make ends meet. How far should we take responsibility and try to help? What could we do? We're feeling the pinch too. We live in uncertain times and, in many parts of the world, we in English language teaching are in a contracting market. What can we do to help our colleagues and, hopefully, ourselves too?

“Managing in TEFL” is a fortnightly companion for language school leaders. It is brought to you by Active Language Teacher Training, www.activelanguage.net, providers of Trinity Dip and CertTESOL and Teaching Younger Learners courses.

We pay teachers for the classes they teach, is it our fault if there are fewer classes? The contraction in certain ELT markets feels very real; adult students are moving towards online alternatives to the classroom and its hard for us to compete in that space, teenagers are getting their qualifications younger and younger and in many parts of the world falling birth rates are an additional concern. Of course, there are levers to pull in all of these areas in terms of marketing, increased quality and moving into different spaces but none are easy.

There are fewer hours available in our schools in a traditionally low paid profession and the financial effect on our staff is exacerbated by the almost global cost of living crisis. As a result many teachers are finding it harder than ever to get by financially, ELT is only very rarely a big earner, people love the profession for so many reasons. It is still a beautiful way to make a living but it's getting harder and harder.

We still have students in our schools and hopefully plenty, but perhaps not as many as before. At a recent regional ELT conference talking to other language school leaders most of us seem to have fewer students. There was much talk of “stability” but I wonder if that's just a euphemism for something more difficult. We're all struggling, “trudging” was a word one fellow language school owner used. And yes, we also love so much of it but, yes, for u too, it's getting harder and harder.

Even when teachers are "lucky" enough to get full time contracts, so often, especially for people living alone, it's just not enough to pay the bills and teachers are dipping into savings, using credit and needing to find extra hours elsewhere, perhaps private classes both online and in-person, perhaps in other schools. It is a hard time for many teachers, we need to understand that.

What can we do?

The first thing is tobe aware of and sensitive to the issue and the effect it can have.It's bad for morale, it affects the staffroom and sadly some great teachers will make the difficult decision to leave our schools and to leave the profession to look for something more sustainable. Be aware that the struggle is real. So, what about some solutions...

We could pay more. For many of us, paying more could put us out of business, our margins are thin and getting thinner and any added pressure on salary costs could be fatal. We could add in end of course payments possibly based on length of service or qualifications, it's often sincerely appreciated by the team and doesn't add to the regular monthly costs.

We can alter our expectations.When working with us was a full time job with sustainable pay, we could expect things of teachers that we might not now. One example is around school-organised professional development; we might want to switch away from obligation towards opportunity. Its a powerful shift which shows an appreciation of teachers’ independence and often, if its done well, results in increased engagement.

We can support teachers more.We might not be able to pay more but maybe we can help more in crisis moments. We all have emergencies when we need to pay for things outside our normal budgets. For the teachers who work with us it could mean a broken boiler, a plumbing emergency or more traumatically when a loved one in a different country needs us or passes away. We can set up ring-fenced hardship funds to help people in acutely difficult circumstances, it could be as a loan to be repaid or not. Again, it's an appreciated gesture.

We can help teachers find extra income.We can look internally within our business for some extras and/or externally too. We could consider opening “teacher salary” break-even classes, knowing that it won't help our bottom line but it will help teachers. And, also, who knows, a class with just a couple of students could develop into something bigger. Thinking externally, If students ask for 1:1 classes and want to pay less than we have to charge, we could suggest our teachers and funnel students towards them.

We can help extend teachers’ scope.It could be by supporting them in becoming confident in different classes and therefore we’d be more able to offer them more work. Maybe they've never taught very young learners, maybe they've never taught higher than B2. How can we help our teachers to widen their scope. It's good for us too as we need competent and confident generalists rather than specialists, all-terrain teachers are the most useful to us.

We can also think about increasing scope within the business; what other skills do people have? It could be marketing, social media or AI, it could be other languages or administration skills. Again this could help them and us in so many ways.

We could even explore commercial opportunities together. If one of the team has an idea, why not partner with them on it, again, it could be another win-win situation.

We could invest through the teachers who work with us.We could pay extra hours now to build for the future. It could be free speaking classes, grammar cramers or exam practice so investing in happier students who tell their friends. It could be materials development or course design for in-class or online work, helping you and them develop new skills and hopefully develop new income streams too.

What other ways can we help our colleagues financially? Please add your thoughts to the comments on this post.

Creating win-win situations

There are lots of ways we can help teachers get into a more sustainable financial place and many of these ideas will help us and our businesses too, its hopefully a win-win situation. We can help teachers to feel supported, appreciated and cared for and they will hopefully also feel empowered and emboldened too.

We live in uncertain times, we can make things a little easier by helping each other. As language school leaders one of our most important roles is to care for the people we work with, we need to look after teachers.

This edition of “Managing in TEFL” comes after the significant response to an article in the Sister companion for language teachers, “The TEFLer”, called “I'm struggling financially, it's getting harder.” You can read that article here

You can subscribe to Managing in TEFL on LinkedIn or direct to your inbox by emailing us at training@activelanguage.net

Managing in TEFL is written by Simon Pearlman and brought to you by Active Language Teacher Training, providers of Trinity CertTESOL, DipTESOL and Teaching Younger Learners courses, see our website for more information.