Pros
I'm honestly shocked to see so many negative things written by employees and former employees of Englishtown on this website. I worked for Open English before Englishtown, and I can honestly say that my work is so much easier and so much less stressful now. Englishtown is pretty much the best place you can work for as an online ESL teacher as far as I'm concerned. I was worried about student ratings and penalty fees and all of that before I started working for Englishtown, but I've been here for almost a year and have not had any issues with fees or management. In fact, the support team, while admittedly not the best, is overall very efficient. In my opinion, they really aren't harsh about class issues that may affect your pay. They are understanding and kind. There is literally no lesson planning in this company, which is great. Even if you have a custom topic request by a private student, you can usually find a related lesson from Englishtown for them or you can just find something quick online. You don't need to go out of your way to make this huge presentation for them. Usually they just want to talk and maybe learn some new vocabulary words related to their custom topic. In fact, most private students who choose "custom" as their lesson topic just want to chat. It's not a big deal at all. Unlike some other online schools, you get to work with students from all over the world and not just one specific region of the world. I've learned so much from my students about their unique cultures, and it's definitely made me want to travel even more than I already do. It's always interesting to have classes with a mix of students coming from all different places and cultural backgrounds. I think the students enjoy it, too. They ask their classmates about their home countries. It helps create a really fun and inquisitive atmosphere in the classroom. Group classes are supposed to be set at a max of six students. This is usually the case; however, I've had classes with seven a few times. Generally, I'd say classes usually have around four or five, sometimes lower. Time management is always challenging, but the lesson content is above average quality (compared to what I've seen in previous companies), which helps teachers get through most if not all of the content in 45 minutes, even with big classes. There are usually plenty of hours on the scheduling board. Subbing and picking up hours is easy and efficient. I should have mentioned this first: US (and I think maybe worldwide, too) teachers just got a really nice pay raise. Plus, teachers get evaluated every few months (the criteria is fair and not hard to meet) to get pay raises. I started out making $11, then went to $12 with the standard pay raise implementation that happened in October 2014, and now I'm at $13.20 after a recent performance evaluation.
Cons
There isn't a great chance for teachers to form relationships with colleagues. As a part-time teacher, I find that I don't get scheduled many hours each week. I'm not sure why. I have to pick up most of my hours, but it works out. No benefits (but that's to be expected in this type of position).
