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Samantha Pankey the Director and head teacher of the Online English Institute LLC, an online E learning business that teaches students English from around the world via Skype joins Enterprise Radio.
Listen to host Eric Dye & guest Samantha Pankey discuss the following:
- Why should a student choose E learning, specifically when studying a language?
- Why did you open your own online school, what makes OEI different from other online language schools?
- Who are you marketing your school to, and how are you doing this?
- Have you found it hard to go from teaching for other companies or public schools to running your own business? How do you juggle your teaching schedule with that of being a business owner?
- What do you look for in a teacher for Online English Institute?
- What have you learned about teaching and doing business with an international client base?
- What do you wish you knew when you first started teaching online, and what do you try and instruct your teachers about the industry?
Duration: 13:56
Samantha Pankey is the director and head teacher of the Online English Institute LLC, an online E learning business that teaches students from around the world English via Skype. Samantha is from a family of teachers and although she fought it for years was destined to become a California school teacher from birth. After receiving her BA in English and California Multiple Subject Teaching Credential from Chapman University she taught in the public schools of California’s central valley where she found it rewarding as well as profitable to work for and receive her English as a Second Language certification. After teaching children from immigrant families for almost ten years she left the classroom to work on her MA in Education, which she completed in 2010.
Two weeks before marrying her husband John, Samantha was awarded her MA with little fanfare as she realized that due to the economic conditions of the time there were no teaching jobs available in California. With an unfathomable amount of money owed on student loans she had to find some way to make a living so that the debt was not hanging over her new husband’s head. While searching for traditional teaching jobs online she found an article about teaching English over Skype which had her attention right away. After publishing a few ads on ESL teaching websites she began to build a client base that kept her working everyday beginning at 5 am finishing her teaching day at one or two in the afternoon. She soon saw the potential in having her own website and not relying on the ad boards or receiving students from foreign companies who paid her less than half of what they were charging her students.
Once the website for her first endeavor Easy English on Skype was built, Samantha began learning how to market her self-made website around the internet. Eventually her student list was so large she was required to hire a teacher to take the students she could not fit into her own schedule. Six months later at the urging of her students and the requests of other teachers who wanted to teach as she did a more professional site was built, she registered her school as an LLC with her husband, and set out to hire more teachers. Due to copyright laws and a desire to present a more academic image Easy English on Skype became Online English Institute LLC.
OEI offers one on one lessons in Conversational English, Business English, English Test Prep (for students preparing to attend graduate school in English speaking countries), and specialized classes for children. OEI has been growing rapidly despite the bumps a new business owner experiences, especially one who teaches English and has run far away from anything resembling math. The teaching staff is being brought together as a team and has become the Pankey’s extended family with all suggestions considered and many put into action such as one instructor’s idea to look for grants in order to offer scholarships to students from countries where the cost of one on one lessons is out of reach to those who would benefit the most. In the future Samantha plans on expanding OEI by offering intensive English seminars in person in countries where she has built strong business relationships such as Russia, Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia as well as the scholarship program for educating English instructors in developing nations.
Related Web Site: www.OEIEnglish.com
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