ONCE WAS GREAT, BUT NOW EXTREMELY POOR - Home-based Online English Teacher 51Talk Employee Review

1.0
Nov 14, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You can choose your own schedule. I'm currently in college so it's great when I can choose the hours I want to work. As long as you're diligent and dedicated, as well as driven, this would be a good job to have. Having said that... please see the Cons before you think about working for this company. There are many issues and flaws, I've experienced pretty much everything this company has to offer so this will a very in depth review.

Cons

I would like to share my experience with everyone just so they know what they're getting into. I've been working here in October of 2015 and have experienced probably most things within the company. I was promised the best of everything with this company. The materials are provided for you and the students would have a decent English background that I wouldn't need to do much effort to create a lesson for them. The students can range from Level 1 (extremely basic-what is your name?) to Level 16 (Very near fluent). I've had very low level student who somehow sign up for lessons that are way outside their level. I had a student who was level 5, signing up for level 11 classes. When he didn't understand anything I was saying in the lesson, the words, phrases, or vocabulary, I knew something was wrong. I let the management know about the problem and they didn't care. Then the student gives me a bad review because the material he chose was WAY out of his range. Hurting my overall teacher score. Let me explain the teacher score: after each class the student you taught will be asked to give you a score in 6 different categories. The student get's to choose how many stars out of 5 you will receive for each of the categories. However, there is actually a number assigned to that star value that the student doesn't know about. My favorite one is pronunciation. I've had students give a bad score in the pronunciation category because they didn't understand what I was saying because the material was too advanced for their level. Why is that my fault?! I don't know. The students don't know that their score effects the teacher score very much because management doesn't tell them. The teacher score is out of 100, on an average of the most recent 50 lessons. So if you get a bad score, it can eventually go away. The worst part about a score is if a student gives you a bad score for some reason, there isn't anything you can do about it. Your score will be effected for quite awhile and students will book you less if you have a lower score. If you can keep it above 98.5, that's good. Student can also leave reviews for you along with their score and I've had a few bad reviews that were not my fault at all. Some had a bad internet connection. Some had friends that were bothering them during the class so they weren't focusing. The bad thing about this is that the management will never remove reviews for you, even if they are false or inaccurate. Which is the worst! They will say things like, "Sorry Teacher, nothing we can do.", which I know is a lie. The company can control the website, happens all the time. If that's not discouraging enough, let's talk about the Support Team that you deal with for any problems. The HR Department is all Filipino people that speak English, some better than others. You deal with them via Skype if there's any problems. If you get a response within 10 minutes, you just won the lottery. If it's a question that's serious or you are experience a tech problem with their website or the software for the class... good luck getting an answer. The worst part is if you're late, they know and will penalize you. If there's a problem and you can't log in or open the app, you're absent and you get to pay a lovely fee out of your payment. Payment is only once a month through PayPal. You will get it anywhere from the 1st to the 10th of the next month for the previous month of work. They recently moved the pay up for North American based teachers, which is good. However, they didn't tell me this until recently and I've known about it for about 4 months now and I asked why they never told me. They first acted like they didn't know what I was talking about until I sent them screenshots of the ads I found on various websites stating their new programs. They were shocked and wondered where I found them. Not a very loyal management team or company. They will always put the students first before their teachers because they can always find more teachers, but they can't always find more students. To sum everything up they will promise you great benefits and money, which is true. You can choose your own schedule, which is nice. However, if nobody signs up for your slots that you've opened... oh well, no money for you. It takes awhile to build a reputation amongst students and build recurring students. If I were you, work for someone like VIP Kid or another company. This one is all about the money and very profit driven, which is proven by their management and how much they don't care about their teachers staying. Very high turnover. Everyone month now there are incentives for native speaking teachers to refer people in exchange for like $200 a referral... goes to show how much they need teachers with their turnover rate as well as how much their students are paying for these services. $200 a referral?! That's crazy. I'm not referring any friends because why would I want more teachers in an over populated company anyway. The more teachers you have, the fewer students per teacher you have. It's that simple...

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5.0
Nov 28, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-flexibility -ability to cancel classes in case of emergency

Cons

-the classes are checked all the times, so it might be a bit stressful

2.0
Jun 26, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- work from home - trainings - many students - support from team and admins

Cons

- slavery pay - late salary - stressful students - too high and strict penalties

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