Читать книгу Start & Run an ESL Teaching Business - T. Nicole Pankratz - Bodner - Страница 22

When it comes to extra ESL services, there is a wide range of options to choose from. The trick is to find out what services are missing in your own business and in your area. A more complex approach is to create a need in your clientele.

Since international students live overseas for a significant period of time, you may want to start by thinking about what they need, use, and do in their daily lives. For example, since many students relocate more than once during their overseas stay, you may want to offer relocation services, including transportation and muscle to help move belongings and/or furniture. Indeed, even a transportation service has the potential for success in areas where students have limited options.

Or, knowing that students often feel homesick and disoriented, you may want to provide special counseling or mentoring services. On a related note, you could make students feel more at home by opening a lunchtime catering service featuring food from their home countries. Since so many students travel during their overseas study period, you could form partnerships with hotel or bed-and-breakfast owners in neighboring cities and offer “travel and learn” programs.

Corporations also make use of ESL services. You could build and sell ESL-based customer-service programs to companies that hire non-native English speakers. Many large hotels and restaurant chains rely on foreign-born staff who might benefit from classes in listening, reading, writing, and of course speaking and pronunciation. Offering to help a company help its employees improve customer service might win over the management.