Last week I talked about my adjunct job mentoring students in an online MFA program, where I work with students during the Fall and Spring semesters to show them the ropes of what an editor does. It’s a cool job that pays decently, and it’s helped me grow as a teacher and professional while also helping me make some good contacts.
This week, though, I want to highlight two of my other side hustles: teaching English as a Second Language online, and teaching Japanese in person. Both are steady sources of income that help me sustain my freelance lifestyle, and both help me use my teaching skills in ways I find interesting and stimulating.
So, without further ado, here’s how the side hustle teaching game works:
日本語のレッスンを教えています
A few months ago, a friend of a friend found out that I’d lived in Japan and spoke Japanese. She herself was interested in Japanese culture and wanted to visit Japan, but was having trouble learning the language on her own with apps like Duolingo.
She asked me through our mutual friend if I knew anyone who taught Japanese, and when I heard about this, my first thought was: I could do that. (Also, my second thought was that it sounded like fun.)
I corresponded with my potential student via email to see what level she was at and what she was interested in learning, then made a plan. I chose to use the Genki Level One textbook, which I found helpful when I was learning Japanese, along with Remembering the Kana by James W. Heisig, the hands-down best way to learn both Japanese alphabets through an easy-to-study mnemonic system (again, one that I used when I was starting out).
My student lives close by, so she’s able to come to my place for lessons for an hour one evening a week. At my old place we had lessons at a table in my office, but at my new place it’s easier to just have lessons at my kitchen table. We do a combination of speaking, writing, and reading activities that my student seems to enjoy, and I found the right pacing by trial and error (first by going too fast, then too slow, then just right).
I like teaching Japanese a lot because it allows me to use a lot of the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) skills I used in Japan. I do a lot of the same activities and apply the same language-learning principles, except now I do them in Japanese instead of English. And on my end, speaking, reading, and writing Japanese one evening a week helps me keep my skills sharp, albeit at a basic level.
I also like Japanese lessons because they’re fun: they get me away from my computer and editing work, and provide a more active way of bringing in income, which breaks up any monotony in my workweeks.
I charge a set fee per hour lesson, and try to spend less than an hour prepping, which equals out to a pretty good hourly rate. I also try to keep supplies to a minimum: I found that I can do a lot with just a whiteboard and markers from the office supply store, along with printed flash cards and props from around my apartment. The low overhead made teaching easier to get into, and to further simplify my routine, I bill my student using the same monthly billing system I use with my editing clients.
Online English Lessons
I do online English lessons more occasionally, but they’re still another source of income, as well as a nice change from my usual work.
Back when I lived in Japan, I started giving private lessons to an adult Japanese student I’d met through my job. We’d meet at a local family restaurant every two weeks for a half hour of conversation, then review a short English essay she’d written to practice her writing. It was a nice little side gig, a good way to meet someone new, and a good way to practice my teaching skills with a more advanced student.
After I left Japan, though, I asked her whether she wanted to continue taking lessons with me, and she said she did. We talked about the best way to do this with the time difference, and decided that doing a video call in the evening, New Hampshire time (or mid-morning Japan time) would be best, though we soon switched to early morning (7:30am) New Hampshire time when this became difficult to coordinate.
For payment, my student pays for several months worth of lessons at a time using the international money transfer app Wise, which works in Japan, is easy to use, and has lower fees than other money transfer methods. While the sending and receiving payment part is easy, the Japanese yen to US dollar exchange is unfortunately at a massive low right now, which meant that I had to raise my price a bit to make it worthwhile on the American side, which fortunately my student was OK with.
I’ll be honest: getting up early for lessons every few weeks is a drag (though much easier since I adjusted my sleep schedule!). It can make for a long day and a tired night afterward, but the good thing is that getting up earlier puts me in a more focused mood after the lesson’s finished, and I can carry this energy forward into my day even if it’s a novel-writing morning.
I like keeping up with my student and talking about interesting things together, and, like teaching Japanese, I find that it’s a good way to keep up my teaching skills. Plus, it helps me feel more connected to Japan, which is really important to me because I have a lot of ties to the culture and people there and haven’t been back in a while.
Finally, it’s good to know that if my editing work ever got slow and I needed more income, I could make some side money by teaching English online through a site like Cafetalk, which is popular in Japan and connects students with teachers of English and other skills. Going through a service like Cafetalk is a good way to find students and clients as a freelancer, though you’ll earn less than you would working just for yourself. Still, it’s good to know that options like this exist.
Final Thoughts: Side Hustles Can Help in Many Ways
I like teaching both Japanese and English because they add variety to my week, help me hone my existing skills, bring in steady income, and are just plain fun. Keeping these principles in mind has helped me think more about the many benefits that work can bring us, aside from monetary benefits like a paycheck and retirement plan.
The right kind of work that suits the person doing it, whether full-time or part-time, will make you feel good at the end of the workday and enrich your life in interesting ways. Not only do I need to keep my bills paid as a creative person, but I also want to feel good about the work I do on a regular basis, rather than feeling bored or frustrated with it.
And that’s something we shouldn’t ever lose sight of.