You’ve done it! Your resume is ready. You’ve borrowed some of the neighbor kid’s toys to use as props. You have your equipment set up, high-speed internet, a few ABCs or a map on the background wall of your 3×3 “classroom”, good lighting, a TEFL certificate in PDF format, a large pot of coffee, and three alarm clocks. Now you’re ready to apply! The next daunting question is… which company should I apply to? How can I minimize wasting time with a company I don’t want!?
Do your research!!! It’s very important to understand the difference between each company so that you know what works best with your schedule and lifestyle. Also, if it seems too good to be true, then do more research! It’s very common for a Chinese online ESL company to offer a referral incentive to teachers and/or recruiters to find more teachers for them. For this reason, you may only hear of the positive aspects of a company and never hear the negatives because the recruiter just wants you to apply through them so they can make an easy buck.
Here’s a list of some of the principle differences between companies:
- Adult Students VS. Young Learners
- Lesson Provided VS. Teacher Must Prepare Lessons
- Parents Choose Teacher VS. Company Assigns Classes to Teachers
- Guaranteed Bookings VS. Non-Guaranteed Bookings
- Fixed Hours VS. Flexible Hours
(If hours are fixed, do they offer additional hours that can be added to your schedule on a weekly basis? What are the minimum weekly hour requirements?) - One Time Student VS. Regular Students
(Will you be able to develop a relationship with your students?) - Teachers Must Prepare Rewards VS. Company’s Platform Offers Rewards
- One on One Classroom VS. Two or more Students in Classroom
- Length of the Lesson
- Amount of Time Between Back-to-Back Classes
(Is the time between classes paid?) - Classes Conducted on Company Platform VS. Classes Conducted on Skype, ZOOM, or another 3rd Party Video Conferencing Software
- Teacher’s Written or Recorded Feedback for Students:
(How long? How often? How much time to finish?) - Vacation Time Off and Sick Leave
- Monetary Penalties for Time Off, Emergency Cancellations, and Teacher No Show
- Base Pay + Bonuses VS. No Bonuses
- Pay in Foreign Currency VS. Pay in USD
- Transfer and Bank Fees for Receiving International Payments
- Are Secondary Positions Offered?
Once you know the right questions to ask, you’ll be better prepared to figure out which company will work best for you. Why does it matter? Honestly, it’s not a big deal to teach a one on one class vs. a classroom with four students. In some ways, one on one is fun because you can get to know your students well and you can cater to their specific needs. On the other hand, if the student really isn’t feeling like they want to be in English class today, a one on one class can be painful to get through! Having 2 or 3 additional students in the classroom can liven things up, take the pressure off the quiet student, create a more fun environment, and even a challenging and competitive atmosphere for them.
Why is it important to know if the parents schedule your classes or if the company schedules them?
Some companies like iTalki or Palfish allow you to create a profile and set your own pay rate for a 30-minute class. This might sound appealing, but it has some significant downfalls. First of all, Parents (or Students) will be perusing hundreds of profile pages and teacher pictures, but you will be only one tiny little profile amongst thousands of other teachers who are offering the same thing. What can make you stand out? Perhaps a hefty list of credentials or setting your class pay rate to the lowest amount to stay competitive. Either way, the odds are against you and your bookings are not guaranteed.
If you work for an online ESL company where bookings are guaranteed like Magic Ears, or where the company assigns the classes to teachers based on an internal priority system, like DADA, then you will have a much higher ratio of booked classes, and in turn, a steady income.
Let’s Start with the company that has my purple heart, Magic Ears
Now I’m ready to tell you about the 5 different companies that I’m familiar with. Let’s start with my current online ESL company: Magic Ears. Starting pay for all teachers is the same, right off the bat. They offer a base pay of $9 per 25-minute class. If you happen to have a degree in Education, then they will start you off with an additional $1. You can get an additional $1 bonus for being on time (3-minutes before class start time) and another $1 bonus for opening 60 peak hour slots per month. They also have an added bonus for taking last-minute standby classes that adds an additional $2 to the base rate. That means that a brand new teacher can make $18/hour (without bonuses) or up to $26/hour (including all bonuses). #mindblown
Magic Ears also offers a fantastic schedule to established teachers. The available times to teach classes start at 5:00pm BJT from Monday through Friday and finish at 9:30pm BJT, and on the weekends you can even get classes as early as 2:00pm BJT! See the image below to see how Beijing Time translates to Eastern Standard Time in the USA.
The all-important question: Can I actually get booked and earn a steady income?
All the lesson material, songs, games, and rewards are provided to the teachers 24 hours before class start time, and available on the Magic Ears platform for review. The only thing that teachers need to bring is at least 2 relevant props to the class. This could be anything from a flash card, a whiteboard, a printed picture, or a physical object.
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. The all-important question: Can I actually get booked and earn a steady income? Yes, but let me explain the booking process for Magic Ears. You are booked by the company, not by the parents. There are no minimum hourly requirements at Magic Ears. About 48 hours in advance your class time slots can be opened. The company will then book your open slots with guaranteed classes based on the following criteria:
- Your “Rank”
- How many slots were opened for the upcoming month
- How many Peak Time slots were opened
- How far in advance these slots were opened
Your rank is established based on the “quality” of your classes and how well you follow the company’s (strict) bottom lines. (Noise control, Energetic classroom, Time Management). Your guaranteed hours will increase as you rank up in teaching and as you make a certain % of supervisor & parent feedback. All new teachers start out as Freshmen rank and have limited slots open. After you teach your first 10 classes, you can rank up to Benchmark (can open full schedule but not high bookings) or Junior (about 50-60% of your open slots booked). After 100 classes you’ll be eligible to rank to Senior, and you’ll be guaranteed 80% of your open slots to be booked. Magic Master is for those in the top 5% of feedback and has 100% of opened slots guaranteed.
Truth be told, it took me a good amount of time to “rank up” so I had a schedule which had a lot of holes in it. For example, I wouldn’t work 3 hours straight. It was frustrating because I didn’t want to wake up at 4:30am EST just to teach 1 half hour class. But, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. BE A STANDBY HERO! Standby classes will appear on the schedule and you may choose to book the time slot. If you have scheduled a Standby slot, you will enter the platform 5 minutes before class and remain 15 minutes after class time has started. If you do not teach, you will earn $5 for standing by. If you do teach, you will earn base play + $2 bonus for taking a last minute class. This excellent provision allowed me to fill the gaps in my schedule and get paid for a solid 3 hours. Then, you can bide your time till you hit your first 100 classes and rank up. In the end, you can get 80%+ bookings (with a few added standbys here and there) then it’s totally worth it.
If you decide to apply for Magic Ears, don’t hesitate to reach out to me! It definitely helps to have a mentor as you are learning about their teaching methodology, especially if you’ve previously taught for another company. Please use my referral link to submit your application by clicking here and then contact me directly so we can discuss how to prepare for your demo class.
now, let me tell you about whales english
(rouchi / Sprout 4 future)
For about a year I worked for another company that did things slightly differently. With Whales English, you tell them your “available time slots” when you sign the contract. You should provide the company with an introduction video. The company will take your video, a demo class, and some other things and basically “sell” you to the parents that they’re working with. The parents buy “your face” and they’ll sign up for approximately 16-22 weeks with you. This is awesome because you basically have guaranteed work, and you know that you’ll be earning income for the next 6+ months, but the issue becomes waiting around for your schedule to fill up. So, for example, you might have a given them your availability for Tuesday morning at 5:00am to 8:00am. They sell slots for 5:00am and 7:00am for the next 20 weeks. But the Tuesday 6:00am slot can be open for weeks while they’re looking for someone else to buy your class. It was good, steady work, and they offered very good bonuses. But I could find myself with holes in my schedule for weeks. Also, Whales has recently improved the number of materials, songs, and games that are prepared for the teachers, however, the quality of these materials is lacking, IMHO. I was frustrated
with the PDFs being riddled with grammatical errors and the frustrating issues that came with using a 3rd party video conferencing service. Also, they also pay really quite well, I was getting $20/h plus bonuses, but the hourly rate is prorated based on your 50 minutes of class time not the 10 minutes between classes. First off, 50 minutes is quite a long time to keep the attention span of a 5-year-old, so the work can be challenging, but only being paid a fraction of your hourly rate, means you’re sitting around wasting time. (But hallelujah for a 10-minute coffee break in between classes. For real.) In the end, those were some reasons why I switched to a new company.
3rd on the list but 1st in my pockets, my Hubby is making the steady bucks with dada
Miguel has been with DADA for over 3 years now and going strong. We are very happy with the company. I worked with them for about 8 months, and I really loved the laid-back low-key atmosphere. However, I ended up making $5/h more with Magic Ears, so eventually, I let DADA go. *sigh* But, it’s ok, because dolla bills, yo.
About the company: They sign a 6-month contract with you, and the company books you, not the parents. You can choose your schedule (minimum is 4 hours: 2 hours a day, 2 days a week, non-consecutive) and then you stick to it. (But don’t worry, it’s not indefinite.) It’s a one-on-one class, on their platform. Each class is 30 minutes long but there’s only a 2-minute break in between classes, so you need to end your first class on time, or else you won’t make it back to your second class after your bathroom break!
Once your teaching hours are established, you are required to be in front of your computer during these times. DADA will pay you half your pay rate if they don’t give you a class, so it’s in their best interest to give you as many classes as possible.
You will receive a mix of different kinds of students: trials, substitutes, and students looking for additional classes or a new teacher….then eventually you will accumulate what they call “regular” students. These students choose to have you teach them regularly, at the same date and time each week. Often they will schedule two sessions per week. This is a very nice feature because you are able to develop a relationship with your students and watch them grow.
All lessons are provided and very little preparation is needed for each class. All materials are in written format, there is no music, songs, or games. (This is where ManyCam comes in very useful!) At the end of each class, a brief feedback form must be filled out for each student. Pay starts around $14/h and goes over $20/h for those with more experience or a degree. They give yearly salary increases and a few random bonuses here and there. If you need to change your schedule, you can ask for it 1 month in advance, and they will adjust it according to your request.
itutorgroup established in 1998 was groundbreaking in the industry. We first worked with tutorabc, one of itutorgroups products, in 2012
iTutorGroup is a very good option for those who are from a country with a high cost of living because they base your pay on your location when you complete the interview/hiring process. When I lived in Nicaragua, I applied from there and they offered me (a native speaker) $4 an hour, because “I don’t need much money to live there.” #eyeroll However, I have friends from the USA who interviewed while they were back home and they average about $15/h with them. I also have friends from the UK who interviewed while home and they average $23/h with them. So, if you can fly to Switzerland and interview while there, then you’ll get the best chance of getting higher pay.
Also, iTutorGroup will hire non-native speakers as teachers. The pay will be significantly less than a native speaker, but as long as you interview in a country that has a normal to high cost of living, then a non-native speaker can make around $12/h. If a non-native speaker interviews in a country with a very low cost of living, like Nicaragua, then they’ll offer a base pay of $2/h. #facepalm
Things to be aware of: some companies may hire you on, and let you “choose your own schedule”, but they don’t actually book students into your classes (for example VIPKid and Boxfish). So you’re not guaranteed the hours (or money) as you are with DADA and Whales English. Of course, choosing your hours on a weekly basis is great for flexibility, but having fixed hours is much better if you need a stable income.
I don’t have any personal experience with VIPKid, but I have some friends who worked for them. They are one of the most popular choices for an online ESL company in China. There are many dedicated teachers who work for them and they seem to be very happy with the earning potential. However, from what I’ve heard, the parents book your classes, not the company, so if you are an unpopular choice for any number of reasons, you may not have a steady teaching schedule. I’ve also heard that VIPKid requests that teachers use their personal time to create secondary rewards systems for their students.
BOXFish 🙁
I have had an active account with BOXFiSH for a few years now, however, I’ve never found that I’ve been able to maintain steady income with them. Unfortunately, I found out all-too-late that I wasn’t opening my schedule correctly and the company’s booking algorithm punished me harshly because of it. Apparently, in order to be in line to receive a higher booking rate, your schedule must be opened at least 2 or 3 months in advance, and the more days and slots you have available, the higher your booking rate will be. Since my schedule with BOXFiSH ended up being holier than swiss cheese, I wasn’t able to stick with them since we rely on our online income to pay our bills.
I will use the opportunity to tell you a little bit about them, however. Their teaching platform works only as an app. It works best on iPhone, however, it will also work on Android (but not without issues and allowing it all the permissions in the Android world). #creepy
You might be thinking “Oh, how cool! The platform is right on my iPhone! All I have to do is log in and teach!” Yeah, no. Video chat on a cell phone or tablet is very cool when having a casual chat with a friend, but it really brings down the professionalism when your arms get tired from holding your phone to eye level, so the student ends up looking up your nose. But of course, this is frowned upon, and they have recently been asking teachers to set up their background with a teaching space, background decorations, etc. This means that you have to prop your phone up at least arm’s length away so that the students can even see your background and hope it doesn’t fall during class. Then consider the fact that teaching on an iPhone offers you a significantly small teaching screen to work with, especially from 3 feet away. So while you’re touching the screen, dragging the student’s camera around, trying to click the vocabulary words and role-play sessions, fat-fingers, unresponsive buttons, inability to chat with the company when you encounter issues, and a slew of other reasons, leads me to a resounding NO for teaching by cell phone. #facepalm
in conclusion…..
My recommendation would be to do enough research and create a short list of a few different companies that you’d like to try to interview with. However, you should also prepare a short list of companies that you know will hire you, even if you’re not so excited about working for them.
Perhaps they offer lower pay or you’re not crazy about the way the company works… But, it’ll be very beneficial for you to apply to this company first. It’ll give you a feel for the interview process, giving a demo class to a Chinese adult person who’s pretending to be 5 years old, and just give you an idea of how the whole thing works. Plus, you’ll get a little experience under your belt. It will help so much if you can add to your resume that you have at least 6 months of experience teaching online when you later apply for the company that you really want.
What should you expect in the interview?
Common questions that the interviewer could ask:
- What qualifications do you have?
- Do you have a degree?
- What is your education background?
- Do you have experience with kids?
- Have you taught online before?
- What would you do if the child isn’t paying attention?
- How would you deal with a student who keeps speaking in their native tongue?
- Why do you want to work here?
How Do I Pass The Interview?
Make sure you show off your TPR, props, singing, dancing and other such skills without shame!
Some companies will ask you to pretend that the interviewer is a 5-year-old student that speaks little to no English. They will want you to dive right in and use all the acting skills you never knew you had. Some companies will schedule you to teach a real class as your demo. If it’s a real class, your pay rate may be determined by what they observe from this class. If it’s a demo with the interviewer, they will usually only let you pretend to teach them for about 5-10 minutes. They may ask you to take a word or words, for example, “orange juice”. You may have to help the interviewer to sound out these words and then help them repeat it in a simple sentence. “I like orange juice.”
Follow these tips to pass your interview!
- Make sure your computer was freshly restarted, the ethernet cable is plugged in, internet working well, headset audio and microphone tested and working, and no computer issues.
- Speak slowly, enunciate properly, and use lots of TPR. Point to your mouth when you want the student to pay attention to your words. Then cup your ear when you want the student to speak up.
- Don’t talk too much! Be aware of your incidental language and keep it minimal. Focus on the vocabulary words, and encourage the “student” to speak, read, or repeat after you.
- Correct the student’s pronunciation. This is a major way in which you are “graded.” The interviewer wants to see that you are able to fix mispronunciations. In fact, as a native speaker, this is the principle way that you will help these students linguistic abilities.
- Prepare for the class. Be creative in thinking of how to make the class fun and engaging. Props always grab a student’s attention. A whiteboard, flashcards, or any physical objects relevant to the lesson would be an asset.
- Be careful about your time management. This is another important way you’ll be graded. Don’t go too fast and zoom through the lesson. Remember, “Repetition is the father of learning”. Make sure the student gets their money’s worth from the lesson. But on the other hand, you must keep a reasonable pace according to the student’s abilities and the length of the lesson.
- In regards to that, adapt your teaching depending on the skill level of your student. Be sure to ask follow up questions and extend the lesson materials if your student is quickly moving through slides.
- Use the built-in Rewards System
- Remember to SMILE. You are not only a teacher but you are providing a service to a customer on behalf of the company. Make sure the parents are content with your service, they will be if their child is in a friendly environment that they will want to come back to, again and again!
Are you too nervous to do an interview and a live demo? Well, if you apply with Magic Ears then you can avoid the initial interview altogether! Just apply with your resume and credentials, create a demo recording and send it to them! Easy as English Pie.
For more specific information regarding Magic Ears policies and hiring process please click here. For more specific information regarding DADA application process, click here.
Ready to take the plunge? Jump in. The water’s fine. You’ll love the online teaching experience and reap the benefits of this innovative industry on your nomad lifestyle. Plus, teaching in your pajama bottoms. Nuff said.
