(Note: The original version of this article was posted to an earlier version of the site in September 2021.)
When thousands of online ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers teaching for Chinese companies that cater and market lessons to children lost their jobs – in some cases, overnight due to China’s newest restrictions for online private tutoring to children, the online English teaching industry as a whole was quickly (and still is) devastated. There are other platforms in countries all around the world that hire online English teachers, but China’s market has been remarkably huge in this space – it’s worth billions of dollars (different sources will give you different numbers, but it’s still a vast amount,) which is why the effects have been so profoundly felt.
The effects aren’t just financial, they’re emotional as well – many teachers have become attached to teaching their students and watching them make progress over time. For some, it’s been a hard goodbye to make, if they’ve even been able to say one. I don’t specifically market myself as an EFL teacher to children, but I have taught some, and I’ve always found it to be extra rewarding in its own way. I can’t imagine how some of my fellow teachers feel knowing that they won’t see some of their students again. Even though these kids aren’t my children, I feel like in a way, they still are: I want what’s best for them and I enjoy watching them thrive and grow, even if that growth isn’t always specifically about English grammar or pronunciation. For some teachers, not having a chance to say goodbye is probably the hardest part. Many parents have also felt a sense of disconnection after finding out their child’s teacher may not be their teacher again.
Children in China will no longer be allowed to have private English lessons online from for-profit companies outside of school hours from foreign teachers outside of China. As of right now, adults will still be allowed to take private online English lessons, and according to this article on the BridgeUniverse blog, a foreign teacher may still teach children while living abroad in China, as long as they also meet other requirements, such as having necessary experience and having a valid work visa, to name 2 examples.
Teachers have been scrambling to find new jobs, parents have been trying to find new ways to get tutoring for their children, and online English tutoring companies in China are trying to pivot. VIPKID, one of the most popular online platforms offering English classes to children, is now offering classes to adults as a way to still get some business and not shut down.
VIPKID has offered the following statement to onlineenglishteaching.com: “”First and foremost, let us be clear that we are confident that VIPKid’s business will remain operational. The business, however, will look different than it has to date.”
Magic Ears, another giant teaching company, issued this statement about the state of the company and ESL industry as a whole: “To be clear, the growth of the online ESL [English as a Second Language] industry is no longer being encouraged and it will not be permitted to expand,” the email said. “The new regulations set in place will restrict activity for all ESL companies based in China, it will shrink the industry and eventually it will be dissolved entirely. All companies, including Magic Ears, have downsized. We are now running on only a quarter of the staff that was initially supporting our students and teachers.”
All of this brings up two important questions: what’s next and how will this influence online English education in the future?
Bridge Education Group, an online education provider dedicated to offering high-quality TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certificates and credentials hosted 2 webinars that discussed this recent shift in China’s online Educational Technology industry. Attendees had the opportunity to share their concerns and opinions about this recent shift in the ESL world, ask questions to the panelists, and participate in live polls that opened up interesting discussions.
While this came as a shock to me, two of the panelists at the webinars said they had seen the writing on the wall for some time now. Other participants also responded saying the same thing.
In one poll, 53% of attendees said that they were surprised by the new regulations, while the remaining 47% at that time answered “No.”
One specific question that got brought up was “why did this happen?”
Different participants and panelists offered varying answers, some of which were that China wants to limit contact between foreign teachers and young students for political reasons, or that the online ESL industry in China had become poorly run and was due for an overhaul.
Many teachers were asked to do more work, parents had to pay lots of money for lessons, and the pressure on the young students wasn’t (and still isn’t) healthy at all. In a poll asking “do you agree that the sector needs more regulation of quality and price in China”, 59% of attendees said “Yes” and the remaining 41% at the time said “No.” As an online EFL teacher myself, I personally want all students, parents, and teachers to be in a fair and well-run education environment where learning and balance are prioritized, and in my opinion, the way online ESL schools have been run in China have not been prioritizing what is most needed for parents, students, or teachers. I, along with many others in the field, want this to change.
A poll was taken specifically asking “what do you think motivated this most” and the different results were slightly surprising, at least to me. At the time I wrote the poll numbers down, 42% of attendees said “distancing from Western culture”, 38% said “government exerting control over influential Chinese EdTech companies”, 11% said “reducing stress on “prospective” Chinese parents, 7% said “limiting study hours for Chinese children”, and 2% said “cracking down on illegal teachers.
Another suggestion that was made is that a “duo” or “double-reduction” policy is being enacted, which aims to give students less schoolwork and less spending for parents.
China’s official government website has listed these statements explaining the reduction on their website: “…focus on the healthy growth of students, protect students’ right to rest, improve the overall quality of school education and teaching, actively respond to social concerns and expectations, and reduce the burden on parents…”
“Work goals. The school’s education and teaching quality and service levels have been further improved, homework assignments have become more scientific and reasonable, the school’s after-school services have basically met the needs of students, student learning can better return to campus, and the training behavior of off-campus training institutions has been fully standardized. The burden of students’ excessive homework and off-campus training, family education expenditure and the corresponding energy burden of parents was effectively reduced within one year, and the results were significant within three years, and the education satisfaction of the people was significantly improved.”
“Reduce the total amount and duration of homework in an all-round way, and reduce the burden of heavy homework on students.”
“Individual students who are unable to complete written assignments after hard work should also go to bed on time.”
Hopefully what’s written above will go into practice effectively and students will have more time to have healthy, balanced schedules.
“How long do you expect the situation toward closing all private English instruction to remain in place” was met with varying answers: 72% of participants said “Medium term (between one and five years)”, 16% said “Long term (over five years)”, and 12% said “Short term (less than a year)”.
I’m personally expecting this situation to last at least several years as adjustments are made by everyone involved.
In terms of what’s next and how this will influence the online ESL/EFL industry as a whole, I’m expecting to see a noticeable increase in teachers moving to teach for platforms that aren’t based in China.
There is an extremely comprehensive and thorough list of online English teaching companies on Good Air Language that has been recently updated. Online English Teaching also has a very helpful list on their website.
Some teachers who have taught privately to children online have reported “black market” or “back-door” requests from parents to tutor their children through apps such as WeChat, where payments and video calls can be sent and received. Tencent, the company that owns WeChat, will have to make sure that no teaching is conducted this way in order to comply with China’s new laws, though some teachers speculate that this activity could be carried out elsewhere, therefore making it harder for the government to regulate.
“Others joked that teachers would now have to offer their services in the black market, like criminals. One tutor on the forum wrote that one of her teenage students called her a “gangster,” and told her that private tutors, similar to those engaged in organized crime, should be outlawed,” according to this article on Quartz explaining the situation.
The fact that one student called his/her teacher a “gangster” is a telling sign that this new set of laws probably won’t be going away anytime soon, though it is possible that anything can happen. Teachers shouldn’t be treated as criminals, they should be treated with respect for the work they do.
This change should have been communicated long before it recently happened. The fact that teachers got pretty much zero notice and woke up to find out they’d lost their jobs that morning or would be losing them very soon is like a punch in the gut to the people who already work so hard to help others every day.
As the saying goes, “the only constant in life is change.” This has been a massive change that has been felt by everyone in the online English teaching industry, and I hope all of us can stick together, support each other, and find more opportunities that will allow us to move forward in our careers. While this has been hard for many teachers around the world, I’m hoping there’s light at the end of the tunnels that many teachers find themselves looking at, and I’m hoping this will continue to spark important discussions about the EdTech industry in the future to ensure that teachers’ voices and concerns are continuously heard and listened to. It will definitely be interesting to see how this will continue to play out in the future.