Online ESL Teacher for iTutorGroup
Summary(Review): iTutorGroup, also known as TutorABC, has HQ in Shanghai, which has been around since 1998. If you are with them for long enough and live in certain countries you can make over $22 an hour. In the past, students’ ratings will have a big impact on the teacher’s salary. But they now get rid of this and the pay will be more stable. They now offer completion and contribution bonus which aims to motivate teachers to teach more hours on their platform. The longer you teach with them, the higher the bonus rate you will achieve. Classes are available 24/7 on iTutorGroup platform, which is very unique compared to other platforms. The classes range from individual to small groups of up to six students. They provide extremely easy to use materials. You will be teaching children and/or adults from diverse backgrounds.
iTutorGroup’s award-winning education platforms include TutorABC, vipJr, tutorJr, for English-language learning, TutorMing for Mandarin Chinese language learning, and LiveH2H – a robust, global, and open platform for live interactions and experts-on-demand.Job Overview for Online ESL Teacher
Pay Rate per Hour:
Minimum: $5
Maximum: $22
Class Size:
one-on-one or up to 6
Student Ages:
Elementary & Junior (age 5-15)
High School & College Prep (age 15-18)
Adult (age 18+)
Class Schedule:
Early Morning (6am-9am)
Morning (9am-12pm)
Afternoon (12pm-3pm)
Late Afternoon (3pm-6pm)
Evening (6pm-9pm)
Job Details for Online ESL Teacher
Accent(s):
Native North American
Native UK
Native Australian/New Zealand
Native Ireland
Native South Africa
Degree Required:
Bachelor or above
Certification:
Yes
Years Experience:
Min Hours Week:
5
Internet Speed(Mbps):
Min Uploading: 5 MB/s
Min Downloading: 10 MB/s
Oakary works closely with iTutorGroup and many schools. We help you land a job quicker and smoother by submitting one application and match you with MULTIPLE Teaching Jobs based on your teaching preferences and qualifications, and assisting you with the interview process and communication with the recruiters..
Online ESL Teacher Job Description
- Student Age Group: age 5-18 and adult
- Class Size: One-on-one or up to 6 students per class
- Class Length: 25 min for junior and 45 min for an adult lesson
- Flexible schedule. 5 hours minimum commitment per week, with no upper limit.
- Create a friendly atmosphere for students to learn in and encourage creativity in the virtual learning environment
- Have fun and make friends with talented children and teenagers in our Jr classes
- Meet great people from different cultures and career backgrounds, get inspired in our adult classes
- Peak Hours will be the following hours (all in GMT+8)
- Tuesday-Friday: 7:30PM / 8:30PM
- Saturday-Sunday: 8:30AM / 09:30AM / 10:30AM / 1:30PM/ 2:30PM / 6:30PM / 7:30PM / 8:30 PM
Online ESL Teacher Job Requirements
- Minimal weekly commitment: Min 5 hours
- Bachelor’s degree or above
- Passport holders from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Singapore.
- English teaching experience is preferred
- Certification Requirements:
- MUST have an ESL certificate (such as TESOL/TEFL/CELTA etc) to teach.
- No certificate (yet)? No problem! You can complete the interview first without the certificate and then obtain the certificate when you are hired.
- Preferably have an ESL teaching certificate during the interview process, but not strictly required. However, you must have one before the onboarding process.
- Teaching experience preferred
Online ESL Teacher Salary and Compensation
- Hourly Rate
- Average monthly salary: US$1,500-2,000
- Up to $22 per hour with bonuses
- Bonuses
- Contribution-based on the total hours taught monthly.
- Completion bonuses based on minimal 5 hours per week.
- A base rate of $18 per hour (two 25-lesson) for the junior lesson and $12 per adult 45-lesson.
- PLEASE NOTE: This pay is for teachers based in UK, USA, and Canada – rates may vary depending on your location
- Flexible schedule, 24/7 bookings available
- Teaching both kids and adults, including business English
- Various types of courses for career growth
- Top-notch professional training to improve teaching skills
- Professional and well-designed materials targeting all age groups
- Free Chinese tutoring
- Pay Monthly (iTutorGroup is very punctual in payment)
How to Apply to Online ESL Teacher?
Oakary works closely with iTutorGroup and many schools. We help you land a job quicker and smoother by submitting one application and match you with MULTIPLE Teaching Jobs based on your teaching preferences and qualifications, and assisting you with the interview process and communication with the recruiters..
Online ESL Teacher Interview Process & Tips
- Preferably have an ESL teaching certificate during the interview process, but not strictly required. However, you must have one before the teaching.
Company Information for iTutorGroup
Online ESL Teacher Reviews
A key benefit that iTutorGroup has is that iTutorGroup has a flexible class schedule which opening 24/7 and adult teaching that many don’t offer, which mean you can teach student anytime instead of crammed into a few hours of a time slot. The pay is a monthly basis.
Be Aware of the Hourly Rate
Note that there’re several variables that would affect your hourly rate,
- Teaching experience
- The pay is used to depends on the region you live and where you from. However, TutorABC has changed the policy recently in mid-2020, teachers’ locations do NOT have a big impact on the rates anymore.
- The bonus is now based on the contribution hours, NOT on student rating
- Teachers from the US/UK/Canada still have the most competitive hourly rate compare to others.
Teaching Adult
iTutorGroup is a fairly large English teaching institute, especially in China, Japan, and Taiwan regions, which is especially great if you’re interested in teaching adult where you can learn more about the East Asian culture or learn Chinese and Japanese from your business professionals students! iTutorGroup is the only few institutes that offer adult English lessons. However, that said the majority of the demand is still for children’s classes.
Class Structure
iTutorGroup has many branches, TutorABC, VIPJr, and TutorJr. It gets a bit confusing about which students and materials you’re teaching for. There are 12 different English levels for both children and adult classes, if you obtain the “Jr” labeling on your system then you will have an opportunity to teach age 5-18.
- 12 different English levels.
- Adult class: 45-min session. 1~6 students. Level 4~12.
- Children class: 25-min session. One-on-one teaching. Level 1~11.
Curriculum
- OUP (Oxford University Press) material to make learning effective;
- DCGS (Dynamic Course Generation System) to find the material that suits you the best;
- Well designed materials targeting all age groups for the best learning experience.
Former Teacher says
Review for TutorABC: I’ve been working with TutorABC since February. A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn, which is important because this changes my pay structure. The base rate starts at $7.50 USD, but this can vary teacher to teacher. On top of the base rate you have the chance to earn a bonus which depends on the rating that your students give you. This is sometimes a pain because students will rate you poorly if they are having technical issues or some students won’t rate you at all. I was told I had to work at least 8 hours a week, however on several occasions I’ve worked under that amount and they have not reached out to me or penalized me for it. The classes consist of group and private lessons for adults and children. The group classes are 45 mins and you provide an after class report for each of the students. The private lessons are 45 mins with adults and 30 mins with children. You will also write an after class report for private lessons.
Pay will differ for the different classes. I currently work for three different companies VIPKD, EnglishTown (EF), and TutorABC. I dislike the platform and lessons provided by TutorABC the most. Be prepared to extent lesson material because 50% of the time the material isn’t long enough for the entire class. There are also several errors in their slides. At first I thought the company was a little sketchy because of how out of date their system was and I wasn’t going to continue working with them until they offered me a better rate. I only work the peak hours because I believe that the base pay is too low and not worth the effort. If you have any questions, I’d be glad to answer!
Teacher From Our FB Page says
I don’t know if there is a review of TutorABC here in this group, but I have seen some info that may not be true so here is one very detailed review of it. WARNING => It is a really loooong one! xD
First of all, they belong to iTutorGroup and are based on Taiwan. This a company that is ALWAYS recruiting new teachers so you can apply anytime you want to one of their Global recruiters. Will include one e-mail in the application process of one of them.
APPLICATION PROCESS:
This one is actually pretty easy and very simple! After you get recruiting e-mail from them you need to provide this info:
– Copy of your ID
– Current address
– One photo of you
– CV
– Short video up to 1 minute (You need to introduce yourself, to tell about your teaching experience and to say why you want to teach in their company)
They have never said this but my friend was declined because he is a student so I suppose you do need to have at least Bachelor’s degree.
Only this e-mail will determine if you will be accepted or not, NOTHING ELSE! This is everything for your “interview”.
After you are accepted you have few steps to do which are:
– To listen to their orientation that is 3h long (I think they are actually 2h so you need to listen 2 of them)
– Fill in information for payment
– Pass the IT test (Here you will be given a program to install that will check your system, internet speed, camera and headset)
– To sign Service agreement (this one will be available after your profile has been fully activated)
After you do this, you have to do one more thing => to do a trial lesson that is actually a regular 45 minute lesson.
Communication here is mostly done via e-mail. They say it is a 3 day recruiting process but it can be longer so don’t stress yourself about it. 😉
Global recruiter Rubi: rubyho@itutorgroup.com
PAYMENT AND LESSON TYPE:
Ok, here I need to write about payment and lesson types because they are really tightly connected.
First of all your base rate is determined by your location (Country). I am from Serbia and my base rate was 3$. There are bigger and smaller base rates than for my country. The biggest base rate that I know of is for US which is 10$. Also, there are bonuses that I will explain later on.
Now I need to explain some different kind of sessions that they have because they are paid differently and you can not do any of these but there are certain requirements to do them. Some sessions are:
– REG – this is a regular session of 45 minutes and you can have from 1 to 6 students. This session is paid your base rate + bonuses
– REG-30 – this is a 30 minute session that are with kids and teens up to 18 years of age. Those sessions will automatically be awarded to you after you have done 50+ REG sessions. This session is paid 2x your base rate + bonuses
– REG-SJ – this is the same as REG-30, the only difference is that you are not awarded this session by the system and/or schedulers but kids are choosing you. I am not sure how payment is for this one in other countries but I will do the math for Serbia so you get the idea => 2x base rate + 2$ + bonuses. I am not sure if those 2$ are the same for all countries or this is also changeable due one’s location. How to get this kind of lessons? You need to do 300 lessons in total, to have TEYL certificate and to have average feedback score of 9,00 out of 10,00. usually they call you to do this kind of lessons but you can also ask to do them after you have met the requirements (minus TEYL that I will explain later on)
– 1-on-1 – this is same as REG-SJ but for adults and it is a 45 minute lesson. Payment for this one is the same as for the REG-30
– SS – This was interesting for me to learn about. You have LOTS of students. Max that I have heard someone had in this lesson was 306 students. Maximum payment for this one in Serbia is around 18$. This is kind of session that you can get after doing REG-SJ sessions for some time. If my calculations are right, someone from US can earn maximum of 68.75$ per just one SS lesson. Note here that there are 3 different kind of SS sessions and the difference is in time length – 45, 20, 10 minutes and the payment is of course is a bit different for each one of them.
– LVP – Level placement sessions or DEMO as we call them. This is to do trial sessions with new students and it is pure hell from what I have heard. I have never done these ones, I have rejected their call in the e-mail.
Bonuses:
Bonuses are determined by the number of the students that have attended the class and it is in percentage of your base rate. Feedback that student can give you are grades from 1 to 10 where grades from 1 to 7 are negative ones and will mean you lose money from your base rate. Other 3 grades will give you some extra money to your base rate.
TEFL AND TEYL CERTIFICATES:
To work in TutorABC they will ask of you to have TEFL and you need to provide it in the first 3 months of working. In onboarding process they will provide you some links with discounts for 120h TEFL course and you will have to pay for it. On the other hand before you start teaching REG-SJ sessions, the company will pay for your TEYL course so this is really nice of them.
MATERIALS AND PLATFORM:
They have their own platform (classroom) that reminds me of Paint that we all have on our computers. It is really easy to use. As for the materials, they provide their own that are like Power Point presentations. Materials for higher levels are really good but those for lower ones are pain in the ass! You will have lots of materials with 15 or so slides that will have just one word or sentence on it. This is actually really huuuge problem if you have level 2 students during a 45 minute lesson (Student levels in TutorABC are from 1 to 12) so it is pure hell to fill in the time!
TEACHER SUPPORT
They have their own chat that you will need to install. Well….. Schedulers are mostly idiots that will look to book you more lessons during peak hours. For you this is not a bad thing but you can do it yourself. They are pain in the ass with these messages cause I guess they have some bonuses if they open you those slots. They make lots of promises that they almost never keep like to give you REG-30 sessions but instead you get REG sessions with really low students and usually 4 or 5 of students per lesson. There is a Comm(unication) Center which is their own kind of “e-mail” system. Either way, sometimes it takes really long time to get an answer if any at all!
ALL IN ALL:
All in all, this is a nice company to gain experience and 2 certificates, one of them for free. Just remember that everything here is determined by your base rate that is different for different countries. I know there are a lot of people that are doing this as their only job so maybe it might be the right one for you as well. If there are any additional questions, please ask them! 🙂
Former Teacher says
Hey everyone. I have been wanting to do a review on iTutorGroup, TutorABC, whatever you call it.
I’ve worked for them since August 2016. The application process was extremely easy, and I got in. Their pay at that time was $2/45min session and it is based on your location! Around November (and I later realized this happened after teachers’ petition and strike), they raised the pay at $3/45min session. They had a bonus system based on student’s feedback rating. Rating 10 was $1.00 if I remember, 9 was $0.80 or something, and if you get 7 and lower they deduct your payment (7 was -$0.10 and so on). Maybe I have mistaken the amounts of bonuses because I really don’t remember technical things, but it is irrelevant now because they have cut all the bonuses except rating 10. The payment is done every 15th in the month via bank transfer, and if you earn more than $500, TutorABC covers the bank fee up to $35. It has happened a lot of times that some consultants “mysteriously” get up to $60 less than what was shown on their payroll, regardless of their earnings above or below $500.
A week ago they offered new service agreement that they forcefully ask you to sign (it prompts on your portal page and you can’t view the website unless you “Agree”. Of course, right click > inspect element is what we do to avoid it, but you can’t teach unless you “Agree” button, so deleting HTML codes can’t help much). They have made new 25-min classes and wanted to pay 75% of original base rate (BR in the following text), but after the insurgency, they kept it 100%. So now, you can end up have 2x25min classes in 1 hour, which leaves you with 5min break between 2 classes. You also need to finish the student progress report after the class, and enter your next class at least 3min earlier.
There are also SuperJunior classes that were paid x2 the BR + the bonus after student’s feedback. For instance, my BR was $3 + $3 + rating 10 = $7.20 per 30min SJ class. That’s what I was earning. Now it half that way, only $3, and if you get <9 rating, your bonus is $0.
Some consultants worldwide have a BR of up to $10.
Unequal pay between consultants who do the same job, terrible IT support who never helps, sometimes drunk, terrible scheduling system that leaves you no room to take a break is what caused strike where over 1600 people from Balkan signed a petition and stopped booking the weekend and workday peak hours, what caused me to write here and warn anyone who is trying to work for them to be extremely cautious and avoid TutorABC in a wide range, unless you want to be a robot working for capitalistic company whose number 1 goal is more profit.
Best regards everyone, sorry for the long post, it is worth reading.
peter says
iTutor is the most disgusting online group, rude and disrespectful rats,
that choose the worst and eliminate the best, experienced and educated candidates,…
oetjobs says
Thank you for your feedback. We just let you know that we added more information from them and we give two stars rating as well.
Teacher From Our FB Page says
Since I am waiting for the students to show up, I decided to write a review for TutorABC, where I currently work.
Pros:
1. Flexibility!! It’s the biggest feature I really like them. I can cancel the class in the last minute without penalty. I can have different schedule everyday.
2. They have both adult and kid sessions. Because they have sessions for adults, it allows me to work 2-3 hours in the morning and 3-4 hours in the afternoon. I live in Mountain time zone in the US (2 hours behind EST), so it’s very hard for me to get up early if I only teach kids.
3. Bonus system. I get almost half my pay through bonus system. But the problem is if you get the students to rate you. I once got $30 for one session (but only once!). The base pay in the US is 7.5 dollars, so the wage per session can range from 7.5 to 30 dollars. However, don’t keep the hope for 30 per session because it is very rare. With the bonus, my average pay is about $11-12 for 45 minutes.
4. They hire non native speaker. However, the base pay is based on location.
5. The hiring process is very easy.
6. I don’t need to build my clients base. They fill my schedule for me.
7. I still get 100% pay if the students don’t show up.
8. They pay on time.
Cons:
1. They are not really organized. Dealing with them can be a pain.
2. The base rate is pretty low comapred to other companies.
3. Some of the staffs are rude.
4. Some students are rude and hard to please.
5. The bonus system plays an important role on your pay. However, it’s basically like begging for tips. Since it’s not mandatory to leave the feedback, a lot of students don’t do it. The company gives you a false hope that you can earn up to $34. So they can lower your base rate. But often times you get 0 feedback and only receive your base rate.
Overall, I enjoy working for them so far. I will continue to work for them because of their high flexibility.
McSchool says
For experienced freelance teachers this is nothing more than a sideshow to top up your earnings when you have some cancellations or nothing better to do. The base rate is pathetically low and is offered to all regardless of experience. So do the interview and the training, get your tefl later and yes you too will earn the same as an experienced and qualified native. That ought to get the alarm bells ringing from the off and clues you in that this is just a money making machine, which it is.
It’s not all bad, there are some nice students, but you will struggle to get feedback out of them, and even when you get on a roll with some top quality lessons and scores, you can guarantee that some hard ass impossible to please parent (who is usually sitting with their child and distracting you from your job by acting as your assistant, even butting in and messing with the flow of the lesson and methodology) will leave you a medley of critical remarks, because of course they are paying but didn’t quite realize that their presence messed everything up. Yes your series of 10s will be reduced to insignificance by these kind of people when they unload their bitterness on you, or just outright lie about what happened during the lesson. And don’t bother trying to contest any of those unjust low ratings because the management won’t even reply to you even though they profess to review all such lessons, so even if they finally do, it will be too late to have any effect on your pay cheque. What else? You could Labour under the delusion that even more thorough preparation could help you out, but you will feel no incentive to prepare for such poorly paid lessons where less than half the students can be bothered to rate your efforts, and in the end, your best efforts will always be held in check by those students who will only see the negative in everything you do. It’s amateur night on this site, and it’s a joke that they actually demand a tefl qualification when they aren’t prepared to pay for quality and are only interested in maximizing profits. If they had a compulsory feedback system, which they should (after all, the students get progress reports from you, non-submission of which will lead to no payment for the lesson) then they might garner some sort of respect from teachers. As it stands, it is the educational equivalent of fast food. You have been warned.
Kat S. says
I got accepted to ITutor group (or VipABC), as well, but I was not satisfied with their offer. I’m from Serbia. They offered $3 per lesson and the interview was a bit strange. The recruiter was late for the interview, but that was not that big of a deal. It happens. I was supposed to have a mock class, but she said that there was no need for that because of my online teaching experience. I did not understand her that well which made her a bit angry. I was a bit uncomfortable. And the whole interview was even more confusing, as I mentioned to you in one of our previous emails, because I thought that she was a recruiter from another school.
However, I got the job at SinceWin! 🙂 I am so happy! However, I still didn’t have any classes. I am waiting for them to complete my profile.
I haven’t had any classes, yet, however the interview process was amazing. My recruiter is called Lexi. She has a very lively and warm personality. She is everything that a recruiter should be: clear, professional, helpful, kind. I love the platform ClassIn, and I love the fact that I’m making a step forward (or a leap forward) in my career.
J says
In addition to all of the other comments and atrocities committed by this company, they want you to install TeamViewer on your computer. For those of you who do not know what Teamviewer is, it is software that allows for remote access to YOUR computer. Stop! Think for a minute! Giving anyone access to your computer is just plain stupid. You could end up on a botnet, or have all of your banking details and money stolen, or your identity. The list of possible negative consequences is looooong! Never give anyone access to your computer.
Personally, any software or file that I need to download, I do, but I do not open it until I run it through virustotal.com and check for malware or trojan horses. FYI, there are two companies and one teaching platform right now that have trojan horses on their platform. https://www.virustotal.com/#/home/upload
Amadeus says
Stay clear away from this banana company called tutorABC / iTutorGroup. They need speech therapists, not teachers! It takes hours to teach these dumb dinks a single English word! This is an example of how it works. Please, say a boy. You wait for 5 seconds, 10 seconds, nothing. Then you say could you say it, please? You wait for another 5 seconds, 9 seconds, nothing happens again. Then you repeat. Could you say this word, please? You wait for 10 seconds, 12 seconds, nothing happens. You say is it not clear, what seems to be the problem? You have another 10 seconds of waiting for nothing again. Nothing. Silence. Then you say can you hear me at all, is that a technical issue? You got another 7 seconds of waiting for nothing and you start typing into this IT support live chat and all the other chats they provide just to ask what is wrong and then all of a sudden and out of the blue your very smart chow at the other end says, “A boy”. Wow! You fall off your chair at their “lightning speed” of opening a mouth! That was just your first word out of a sentence with a text of 12 pages you have to teach! Fantastico! So if you have nerves of steel you may give it a try but after a week of doing this crap you’ll go completely nuts, unless you’re an experienced mental specialist and a speech therapist combined into one. The pay part is not so good, being at about 7 bucks for a 25 minutes class, but these fortune cookies seize every single opportunity to cut on it. You must log in to your online class 3 minutes before it begins. Now If you are 1 second late they will happily deduct your full-participation bonus straight away and that’s 200 bucks and higher depending on your hours worked. There are no excuses accepted whether it’s a glitch in their software, or their network, or that these are their platform bugs (they have millions due to imbecility), or your sudden unexpected death it doesn’t matter. There are no excuses accepted no matter what. Period. Plus, you feel extreme negativity giving off in every single contact you make with any member of their staff, even though they try to be utmost polite and courteous. Disgusting! Double-talker hypocrites, virtual in their names! That is particularly true and genuinely applies to their IT guys. Gee, every IT representative thinks he is the only one arrogant slit-eye know-it-all God, who a second later makes you almost puke when he starts telling you his incredibly dumb and absolutely irrelevant gibberish about computers! Additionally, their email support is dumb-foundedly ingenious! When they do not know the answer they simply never ever reply at all, they just screw it! The problem is solved! Perfect! Now as far as their bookings are concerned, you may basically have as many hours booked as you wish, but it does not necessarily mean that you will get students. That said you may have even their 10 peak hours booked (these are their peak hours when you are supposed to have it stacked in full) but they may provide you with just one student only. There is no guarantee. You are paid per class held here, not per class booked unlike elsewhere. The thing that is also darn stupid is that their classes are finalized only one hour before they begin which means it will not change any more. Do you follow? That actually and in fact means that you have only one hour (right before it begins) to go through all the lesson plans and materials in order to get ready. If you prepare for your classes let’s say 3 hours before they begin then my congratulations as it will be your uselessly wasted time as all the classes and students may completely change. I would strongly suggest to stay clear away off these cheapskate and immaturely ignorant slant-eye chopsticks!
Robert Blackie says
There are so many things abhorrently wrong with this company that it is hard to determine where to begin. Unlike most other online English schools, they pay you based on location. This means your base pay will be as low as $2 per class (which can be 45 minutes) or as high as $8 per class (for USA, Canada, and UK-based teachers). It doesn’t matter your nationality, education, or experience – ONLY where you are currently based out of. Any bonuses you can make are a percentage of your base pay based on student ratings, and students are not at all required to rate you. If there are technical issues on the side of the company or a 4-year-old has a bad day, be prepared for a bad rating and a DEDUCTION from your pay. In addition, the ratings system is very one-sided. You will NOT be paid for the class if you do not leave feedback and rate each student. But as I said before, students are not required to rate YOU. Because of this, if you rate a student fairly and leave honest feedback, a student can retaliate and leave you a bad rating because they do not like what you rated them. This is because they can see your rating and feedback of them BEFORE they leave you a rating and feedback. This makes retaliatory ratings common and forces teachers to leave positive feedback for all students regardless of performance. Furthermore, your base pay isn’t based on number of students in class. You can make the same base pay whether you have 1 student or 6 in a single class. You may get more bonus IF they rate (and rate you WELL), but it is highly unlikely you will get anything near what they advertise for pay. I had two identically-sized classes, one class I made $18, and the next I made $5 because in the second class nobody decided to rate. And the company BANS you from asking for ratings. They will suspend your account or fire you if you ask (you may only remind them to leave you “feedback”). Living in Mexico and working 50 hours per week for a month, my average hourly pay came out to $8/hour, with a 75% rating response rate and an average rating of 9.8 out of 10. That means I made $1,600 for a solid month of more than full-time employment. Management is non-existent until there is a customer complaint and they will never take your side if there is ever a complaint. Today during a Demo lesson, I had a company EMPLOYEE send me the comment, “you can show your real face, it looks you are not a real man.” Here I am trying to get clients and make money for the company, and THAT is the comment you send to me? And yes, I do look like a “real man” whatever that is supposed to mean. Despicable treatment of their teachers, rampant racism (though not atypical for Chinese companies), and completely apathetic and indifferent to problems. An insanely unfair ratings system. Lesson plans that are so poor as to be completely comical, and the students will rate you low for the quality of the lesson plans you have nothing to do with. You’ll get a lazily-written, non-interactive ten-slide PPT for a 45-minute adult lesson. Good luck with that! This company is absolutely horrendous – basically a sweat-shop for those they can take advantage of by paying low base rates (they DO hire non-native speakers which is how they are able to exploit so viciously; however, you will see some of their teachers have terrible English because of this). Pay was a week late last payroll which they blamed on a myriad of reasons. Overall, one of the most awful employment experiences in my 20 years of working professionally, and I was easily able to find a couple new online English schools that offer much better pay and benefits. I cannot stress this enough – do NOT work for these people.
JustGusss says
Damn lol.
I must say, that I’m not sure if these comments are just that old or that the company has updated/changed a bit since joining this company as a teacher.
Having read all the mumbo-jumbo online and in several comment threads regarding this company was quite deterring at first I’ll admit but as a person who doesn’t mind trying something new and giving it a go—I’m going to disagree with the majority of these comments lol.
Now I could just be a special case—or American for that matter, but I have yet to experience anything ‘bad’ from this company.
It’s been almost a month now and so far it’s been pretty chill. I’m in Thailand waiting to start work at a local school, so in the meantime I’ve taken up this gig to make some extra mula.
And well, so far so good.
At $8/fixed pay that’s about $16/hour. Shit, that’s better pay than what I was getting back home when I was still in college.
So as a side hustle, working 2 hours minimum—at 7 days a week. I’m looking at ~$890/month. I’ll gladly take that.
As far as the tech/IT side of things. I’ve encountered a few issues here and there but you know what….not only does it take the right person to keep the student(s) engaged or informed of the issue happening at that very moment but it’s another to just be patient.
And well, I’m that type of person. And it’s honestly no skin off my back.
When I had to message IT in the middle of the class, they were pretty ‘on it’ and at the end of the day…I don’t get penalized for it.
I think I may have indirectly addressed this concern but as far as ratings and pay go, it’s no longer (for US/UK/Canada) influenced by student ratings or lack thereof. So it’s fixed.
Do you need to give a student progress report ? No sh!t Sherlock lol. Does it have to be on time. Umm, yeah? just do it on time and you’ll get paid.
Unlike me…lol I know I’ve lagged on that a bit so I can see what lessons I’ve given and didn’t get paid for it. Does it suck seeing that big fat ZERO? Yes. But I did it to myself.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m coming up on a month with this company so we’ll see how well or efficient the payout system is.
Overall? I’m chillin. This company at least for me, is just fine.
With that being said, I do plan on trying out VIPKid just for sh!ts and giggles.
Note: the students I’ve had thus far have been aaaaaaaamazing.
Honestly. At the end of the day, teaching isn’t for everyone and you’ll soon come to find out if that’s you.
Thanks for reading ! Haha
darin glorioso says
iTg stole my bonus! They marked me absent for a class i was NOT scheduled for and then revoked my bonus. Even if you successfully appeal the absence, they keep your bonus (it’s in the service agreement).
But, you likely won’t be able to be successful in your appeal anyhow, because the customer support people speak jibberish, so you can’t communicate properly.
Which is likely part of their plan to “lure” teachers into something they call “Teamviewer” which I suspect is to gain control of our computers and use them for nefarious deeds.
Beware of this company!!
Really bad news.
liam hewson says
Terrible Company.They say all the right things, but each action is about maximizing profit over all else.
Mary Pen says
LOL!!! $5.. I wish… Basically if you are not a British Citizen then you earn around $3 a hour. DO NOT APPLY FOR THIS COMPANY. They are horrible.
oetjobs says
Hey Mary, did you apply recently? because iTutorGroup has changed their salary policy so you should not receive at that low level if you’re from the UK.
Ockert Kruger says
I hope to make this comment objective about iTutor:
– I’ve worked for this company for 2 years and during this time the company treated me very well. I was able to progress through the different levels and get access to many different teaching opportunities here.
The good:
– The ability to work 24/7 (But don’t expect your schedule to be full outside Beijing prime time hours)
– Lot’s of variety to teach (adults, kids, lecture style, in school classes)
– Support for their special programs are very good
– They offer a huge library of training material all for free. They pay experienced teachers to make more material as well as do live training sessions.
– Low amount of fixed hours (You can cancel them anytime up to 4hrs no penalty)
– Cancelling classes is very easy and unless done within 24hrs and not too often carries no penalty
– Plenty of grace and free passes for having to cancel or miss a class.
Was good:
– The pay, I averaged about CAD 29/h (More detail in the bad)
– IT/Sheduling support during and after the lesson (They consolidated and made them one making getting support more challenging but support staff is good if you can get a hold of them)
– Non-native English speakers were welcomed to teach on their platform (Now only the 7 countries can get work for them)
Bad:
– They pay per nationality not location anymore, this means that gave me a choice take a new pay for CAD $8/h or leave. The province where I live in Canada has 2x that minimum wage. That said if you have US/CAD/British citizenship (not green card or permanent residence) you can still average around CAD $20/h if you are a skilled teacher.
– If there are problems especially with things like pay/ratings/scheduling they bury their heads in the sand and pretend the problem doesn’t exist. Sure they will send you an email/support reply, but it will be a generic useless email that doesn’t answer the question.
– Ratings, the company requires you to maintain a rating of 9.5/10. Sometimes a spiteful/out of your control rating from a student can put you under that 9.5 easily especially if you are new to the company. No way to appeal a negative rating. That said I maintained a 9.8 average rating by just
teaching well.
This is still a good company to work for if you are US/CAD/British citizen and can recommend working for them. If you are South African steer clear of this company. I am forced to leave the company or work for such a low wage that I cannot make a full time living working for this company anymore.
kingsley aham says
I am from Nigeria and I am certain I have what it takes to be on iTutor. I have been on a couple of other platforms but really the classes and pay weren’t forthcoming. I have tried applying here for 3 times now and rejected. I was wondering if it is because of my location.
Mark Matthew Mellott says
Itutor has begun the process of not renewing teacher’s contracts. This isn’t only for teachers with poor performance, but for all foreign teachers it seems. I’m a native speaker from the U.S. I’ve worked for Itutorgroup for one year, and have taught over 4,200 lessons during this year with an overall rating of 9.87 (from 1 to 10, 10 high). I’ve never received a complaint from a parent or had any negative warnings from the company. Several days ago I received an email saying that when my contract expires this month, they will not renew it due to their “Strategic Structure Agreement”. Many other teachers also received the same email at the same time. So it seems that iTutor are not hiring foreign teachers any longer.
Anand Kumar says
I worked for this company for about 4 and a half years. In the early days it was a good place to work and I was earning enough money to live on. But last year the base rate dropped significantly. Working for less than £4 an hour was absolutely soul-destroying and demeaning. The management does not treat consultants with respect and communication levels are appalling. Many lesson plans are dreadful – they contain typos, poor grammar, unimaginative questions and exercises and outdated designs. To expect teachers to work with them is like giving a craftsman defective tools and saying: “Go on, work with that.”
The company uses intimidation tactics and punitive measures to deal with poor internet connection and absences.
The only pro of working for iTutorGroup I can think of is teaching lots of positive, dedicated and appreciative students of all ages.