Did Anyone Here Try TEFL/TESL and Not Enjoy It?

[rudder]

I did the TEFL thing for very brief periods of time. I did some online skype stuff with Russians and some other countries. One person had me teach their young daughter online, which sucked. The coolest was teaching a Russian business guy about the same age as myself. He was so laid-back, and I never felt any pressure when teaching him. I taught in front of a classroom full of 15 year olds in south america, which really sucked.

Basically, if I had the right student (like the Russian guy), I wouldn't mind teaching just a couple times a week. Overall, I just don't like being verbal for long periods of time, plus I always felt like an imposter who didn't know the grammar rules in English. I'm a native speaker, and I couldn't be bothered to field questions about, "why is it that way in English!?"

"I don't know. It just is?" I would think.

The verbal aspect was the worst. Most of the time it felt like I was doing public speaking or something. It definitely put me substantially outside my comfort zone, and I definitely had performance anxiety. I could see maybe the skype stuff being fun if you drank some vodka during the class or something, but that's not very healthy, and would cut into the net profits.

The other thing that sucked was coming up with a lesson plan or thinking about how I would present the next lesson in the book. I think there are some books that do the planning for you, right?

Now, I have a terrible internet connection and don't live near a population center, so teaching is not really even an option for me anymore. I'd rather do something like proofreading, writing, or translating. People that know me always suggested I should figure out how to get paid to write. Those activities don't require much bandwidth or worrying about having to spend too much time talking. Any other ideas?

[Cornfed]

It was hellish at first but I got to like it and be reasonably good at it. In person that is. I've never tried it online.